Extremus: Year 121

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Waldemar Kristiansen is going to whip this ship into tip-top shipshape, and that’s his private guarantee. The turn of phrase makes him giggle, but he doesn’t say it out loud to others. He doesn’t really say anything about it. He’s just going to make it happen, and people are going to accept his changes, whether they like them or not. Or they’ll die fighting it. He just needs to get out of this locked room first. Sure, he’s been in here for several months now, and he has not found any chance to escape yet, but he will. He’ll figure it out. He comes out on top. That’s his real job. That’s why he’s the captain, even though someone else has been masquerading as him since he won the competition for the chair.

Pronastus Kegrigia flashes back into the room after two weeks of no contact. “How’s tricks, my old friend?” he asks in that annoying speedvoice he uses. The guy doesn’t even try to slow his voice down so it sounds more normal to Waldemar.

“Let me out,” Waldemar says simply. It doesn’t feel like he’s talking slowly, but he knows that he is, and he can see how bored Pronastus gets while he’s waiting for him to finish what should be a quick and easy sentence. He recognizes that impatience. He has seen and felt it in himself. Pronastus is wearing his face, and he’s not using it right!

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Okay, that line was too fast. Waldemar could barely parse it. “Just be glad that I didn’t kill you.”

“You still need me,” Waldemar reasons. “You need me to tell you how to act like me. I’m not afraid of you.”

“I won’t need that for much longer,” Pronastus contends. “I only kept you alive to make a smooth transition to your new personality. I needed to start out with a familiar baseline, so people won’t detect a sudden shift in behavior, and grow suspicious, but I’m just about where I wanna be. Admiral Jennings is wary of me. I can’t tell whether that’s because he suspects that I’ve stolen your likeness, or he just knows that you’re a grade A asshole, and I’m stuck with your terrible reputation until I can slowly change people’s minds. That’s what the new personality is for.”

“I am not an asshole, I am the best this ship has to offer. I am not burdened by things like emotion or personal attachments. I only care about the success of the mission. If you will just let me have my life back, I will do a thousand times better than you ever could with my clone.”

“You’ll never get the chance,” Pronastus argues. “You won’t understand this, but I am doing everyone a favor by taking your place, including you. There are things I know about the future. You would have been absolutely miserable, and you would have made everyone else miserable trying to find happiness. Waldy, you can’t be happy. You’re neurologically incapable of it. I doubt you can even grasp the concept. Just stay in your slowmo world, and wait for the mercy of my bullet once I’m finally finished with you.”

“People will notice,” Waldemar tries to say. “Silveon knows me better than anyone. He knows what my brain struggles with. He’s the one who taught me how to act more like an emotional being. When he gets back, he won’t be fooled by you, no matter how gradually you change.” He intentionally didn’t mention his wife, Audrey, who also knows the real Waldemar, and won’t long be fooled by this impostor. Waldemar doesn’t love her, because he doesn’t understand what love is, but he is committed to her, and he genuinely doesn’t want harm to come to her. Pronastus better not be touching her.

Pronastus sighs, but sped up, it kind of sounds more like a cough, which Waldemar finds humorous. “I debated whether I would tell you, but now that I’m confident in the effectiveness of this timehock, I might as well be honest. Silveon doesn’t know anything anymore. Silveon is dead. He knew too much about me, so I had to kill him. He did not leave for an away mission on the Perran Thatch to get his mind off of his parents after they died. He’s been dead the whole time. It happened within minutes. They actually saw each other briefly in The Buffer. It really messed with their heads.”

Waldemar begins to seethe. He doesn’t love Silveon either, but he has been a good friend. He knew what Waldemar was. He knew that he was different, and didn’t feel things like the other kids. But he didn’t run away. He didn’t even just uncomfortably accept Waldemar’s differences. No, Silveon has been his greatest supporter since they were children, and actively put in the effort to make him a better man. It worked. Without Silvy, Waldemar would be an absolute piece of shit. He’s still not a hopeless romantic, but he recognizes the value in others, and that he should treat them with respect, because that’s what people expect out of him. Waldemar would not have become captain without Silveon’s personal sacrifices. He deserved so much better than this. In anger, Waldemar lunges for Pronastus, but as always, he misses. He’s too slow.

Pronastus smirks, and casually steps out of the line of fire. “Good job, buddy!” he jokes. “You almost got me this time, you’re getting faster.”

It’s true. Waldemar has been spending most of his time here improving his speed. If he can learn to move extremely fast, it might be enough to get him on the same level as this jerk.

Pronastus checks his watch. “I’ll have to get you another dose of the timesuck, and increase the potency so you’ll go even slower than before.”

“That will be even more frustrating for you,” Waldemar argues. “You grow impatient with how long it takes me to talk now. If you slow that down even more, our conversations will take forever. You’ll go mad.”

“I’ll live,” he defends. “You won’t.” He races towards the other door. He is annoyingly smart. The first time he came back, Waldemar tried to wait by the door to attack him and escape, but instead, Pronastus simply used the second entrance. He will always use the door farthest from Waldemar. There doesn’t seem to be any weakness to exploit. “Goodbye, Waldemar Kristiansen. I’ll be back at some later date.” He points to the food synthesizer, which he modified to only produce slop. “Better ration your meals from now on. As punishment for trying to hit me yet again, I’m not gonna refill the feedstock today. Good luck with that.” He leaves.

Waldemar sighs, defeated once more. Surprisingly, the first door begins to open again. Did Pronastus really just run down the hallway so he could come back? Waldemar happens to be standing next to it right now. That’s the whole point. He’s not that stupid, is he? No, he’s not, because it’s not Pronastus at all. It’s Silveon. “He told me you were dead. He took credit for your murder.”

“He deserves credit,” Silveon says. He sounds normal. His voice isn’t sped up at all. He’s really good at slowing down to match Waldemar’s slowmo mode. But why would he even think to do that? How did he find him?

“How did you find me?”

“I followed Pronastus,” Silveon replies as he’s rolling up Waldemar’s sleeve, and cleaning the skin with an alcohol pad.

The smell sickens him. His mother drank. He hated her. He hated her so much. Hate is one emotion that he can get behind. He turns his nose away so he can breathe.

“For a pathfinder, he sure is bad at spotting a tail,” Silveon goes on. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner. I had to make preparations first.” He’s sliding a rubber band up Waldemar’s arm now, and tightening it above his elbow.

“Not that I mind, but what exactly are you doing?”

“Fixing you,” Silveon answers. He takes a syringe out of his pocket. Slips the cap off with his lips, which he spits out onto the floor, and injects Waldemar with something.

Months ago, after a doppelgänger abducted Waldemar, and injected him with the timesuck, the effects hit him immediately, but they didn’t affect his body evenly, and not even instantly permanently. His heart felt like it was racing while his arms felt like they were swinging through molasses. His legs felt okay for a moment, but then his heart slew down more than ever. The image on the news erratically changed speeds as his brain was trying to figure out whether it was supposed to be framejacking or framelagging. This is all happening again now, about the same as before, but hopefully to more favorable results.

Silveon shows him a handheld fan. “Focus on this.”

Like the broadcast before, the fan keeps changing speeds. It sometimes looks like it’s running in reverse, and sometimes moving in slow-motion. After a minute or so, it settles into a more reasonable speed. “Okay, I think I’m okay.” Waldemar takes a step back, and performs some deliberate movements. He shakes his arms, kicks his legs, and jumps up and down a little. To him, when he was on the timesuck, everything felt normal; at least that’s what he believed. But unlike how it would be if this were a timesuck room, there was a biological component to the drug. He didn’t realize he was so stiff and held down until this moment, now that he can finally move about at normal speed. “That feels a lot better.”

“So you feel all right?” Silveon presses.

“Yeah, it’s fine. What you said earlier, did Pronastus kill you, or not?”

“He killed me all right, and I recall being dead, but I don’t have any details. All I know is that someone had the power to send me back, and they agreed to do so. I don’t know who it was, or anything else about it. I just know that they had to give me a clone body.” He pulls his cheek down. “My scar’s gone. See?”

Waldemar looks, but then frowns and turns away. He’s the one who gave Silveon the scar in the first place. When Waldemar was still quite young, and Silveon was even younger, it was the latter’s birthday. Waldemar had seen videos from the grand repository of entertainment of pranks where people slammed their friends’ faces into birthday cakes. But he screwed up, and a candle ended up being lodged in Silveon’s eye. The doctor made the necessary repairs to the eyeball itself, but it was days before anyone noticed an untreated secondary wound on the skin that had to heal on its own. It left a permanent mark on Silveon’s face, which could typically only be seen when you looked closely, but also sometimes under the right lighting, at the right angle. Waldemar is particularly adept at clocking it since he was the one who made it.

“Hey,” Silveon says in an assuring voice. “It’s okay. And it’s fixed now. My original body is gone. Probably stuffed into an incinerator. It’s like it never happened.”

“Except it did.”

“That’s good,” Silveon encourages. “That’s called guilt. We talked about that, remember? And this...” He waves his hand around his face. “This is forgiveness.”

He knows. “I remember guilt,” Waldemar acknowledges, “and forgiveness. I don’t need the flash cards anymore. I remember gratitude too, though I still don’t know if my face is capable of showing it, so to clear any uncertainty, let me say...thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Silveon replies. A genuinely good guy. Waldemar sometimes wishes he could be him, but also likes his own efficiency and resilience.

“Now. Where is he?”

“He’s probably back on the bridge,” Silveon begins. “Now, I have a plan to put you back where you belong without anyone ever knowing that it happened. What we’ll do is—”

“No, don’t worry about that. The plan is simple, and I’ll take care of it. You’ve done your part. Thank you again.”

“Waldemar, you can’t kill him. We’ve been over this.”

“No, I’m not gonna kill him. Is that what you’re worried about? You should have more faith in me. You’ve taught me a lot over the years. But this right here is captain’s business, and you don’t have clearance. I’m not going to give you any details, but I assure you, I won’t be murdering anyone. The next time you see me, it will be me again. We’ll come up with trust passwords so you’ll know I’m legit, but I don’t want to do that here, because he might be watching.”

Waldemar and Silveon leave the room to create their shared password to avoid any identification failures. The former then uses his biometrics to enter the Captain’s Stateroom. He has never stepped foot in this unit before, and it has been a long time coming. Audrey is there. “Good morning, wife.”

“It’s the afternoon,” she says.

“Right.”

“Didn’t you have work to do in engineering today? thought it would take all day.”

“When was the last time we had sex?”

“What?”

“When was the last time we had sex, or did anything sexual, really?”

“It was this morning,” she replies. “Did you genuinely forget, or are you mad about something, and trying to pick a fight with me?”

“It’s nothing like that.” He takes both of her hands in his. “I will explain everything, but you have the right to know that you were violated. That was not me, but an impostor.”

Audrey gulps, and stiffens her upper lip. “I understand. I mean...I don’t understand, but I understand.”

“Okay. I’m gonna go take care of something, and then we’ll have dinner together.”

“Okay,” she agrees solemnly. He has said things like this before. She’s a good girl. She knows not to ask questions, argue, or get in his way.

It takes weeks to find him, but Waldemar employs his secret police, and Pronastus eventually runs out of paths where he eludes the might of the true Captain of Extremus. The two of them are back in timehock, but their roles are reversed.

Pronastus is now moving too slowly to get out of his predicament, or fight back. “I have an advantage, though. I see the way forward. I will legitimately find a way.”

“Good luck with that,” Waldemar snaps back. “Unlike you, I’m not without mercy. You kept me in here for six months, I’ll only keep you here for three.”

“And then what? You’ll kill me?”

Waldemar chuckles. “No. Then your real torture begins.”

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Microstory 2563: Injured Visitor

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Let me start with my backstory, so you’ll understand why I was at the Foundation in the first place, because it wasn’t to be healed. It’s a complex situation that my family has been grappling with for years, and questioning whether we should attempt to correct the issue since Landis Tipton first showed up. My brother was born with a genetic condition known as T21. Its full name is hard to type out and pronounce, but it’s also often known as Trisomy 21. This is when the patient develops an extra copy of chromosome 21, and it results in a particular facial look, as well as neurological differences. My brother is a functioning young adult, who can put his own clothes on in the morning, and make his own meals. There are things he struggles with, though. He doesn’t need anyone to take care of him—he’s not going to forget to breathe—but he does need some help. It has been hard for him to learn skills that others take for granted, like managing his finances, and navigating the world around him. The biggest problem he faces is discrimination. He has needed assistance finding work, and keeping it, because people don’t understand him. They don’t understand that, while he’s not so good in an interview, he’s good at the work that he’s looking for, he can follow directions to a T, and he’ll never let you down. They keep firing him, because he doesn’t want to engage in certain adult-oriented conversations, and I think that some people just don’t like the way he looks or talks. You can tell that he has T21, because of its defining characteristics, and instead of being accepting, they just want everyone to be the same. One other area he needs help with is healthcare, which is where I come in. He lives with me, and I accompany him on his appointments, which he needs, because he’s at a higher risk of developing true medical conditions. This is what happened. He now has Leukemia, and we’ve been treating it accordingly. We wanted to get him cured, but we were worried what it would do to him. What exactly are Mr. Tipton’s limits? What exactly is a “disease”?

Trisomy 21 is a part of who my brother is, and he does not need to be “cured” of it, but we weren’t sure if the healing process did consider it a disease. The literature says that Landis doesn’t control it. He breathes, and the breath cures everything. After further research, however, we felt assured that he would be all right. They called T21 a condition of state, and not within Mr. Tipton’s purview. As always, I took him to his appointment, and we stayed in a tent, with plans to be there for two nights while we waited. When we woke up one morning, my brother wanted to go on a walk, which we do regularly. Unfortunately, we are not familiar with this area, and didn’t know what to expect. I slipped on some wet leaves on a hill, tried to grab a log on instinct to keep from falling, and ended up with that log on top of me. I was impaled by a sharp snag. I told my brother to run for help while I, dazed and confused, pulled the snag off, stood up, and started limping back. Here was the new question, would Landis agree to help me since I was injured on the property? The answer was no, but he was not without mercy. He used his other gifts on me instead. He sang me to contentment, and soothed my pain through touch. This allowed me to make it to the hospital, which was pretty far away, without being in agony the whole time, but also without breaking their rule against healing injuries. They even let my brother cut in line, so he could get his cure in time to go with me in the ambulance. I think they keep an ambulance on hand now because of this incident, so that’s kind of cool.

Microstory 1876: Necessary Work

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Gross things don’t bother me, and they never did. I don’t remember how old I was, but there was one time when we walked in to find a dead rodent in our classroom. It was just a single room back in those days, if you can believe it. We all just learned together, I don’t know how we got anything done. Anyway, our teacher was afraid. He probably would have had us conduct our lessons outside that day if it wasn’t the middle of winter. That’s probably why the animal crawled its way in there in the first place. Though I suppose it didn’t do him much good. Something had to be done about it, and I was the only one willing. The other kids stayed away from me starting that day. You would think they would be grateful that I handled it like a champ, but I guess that level of graciousness is just not something you can expect from a child. It doesn’t matter, the ostracization didn’t bother me none. I made it out of my small town. I made a new life for myself in the city. I had a few jobs here and there; all of them fit for a lady, even though that’s not how I would ever characterize myself. One night, I was riding in the passenger seat with the boy who was courting me when a deer ran out into the road, and got herself hit. She was bleeding and convulsing, and like the rodent, something had to be done. Once again, I was the only one capable. I grabbed a tire tool from his truck, and bashed it over the deer’s head to put it out of its misery. And of course, just like before, the guy was more freaked out than appreciative. He drove me back into town, and never called me back. But I didn’t care, because this was how I found my calling.

We left the deer on the side of the road, but I didn’t want it to rot there permanently, so I walked myself to the animal control center. I told the guy what had happened, and he said he would take care of it. It’s not that I didn’t believe him, but I wasn’t sure I trusted him, so I demanded he take me back out there right this very minute. Well, he couldn’t leave the place unoccupied, so I agreed to wait until someone else returned. Then we did go out there. He lamented that I severely undersold how large the animal was, but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I could help him load up the carcass. He said that was against protocol, so I asked him if my being there at all was protocol, so he gave in, and let me help. To my surprise, we drove the thing out to a bird sanctuary, so the meat wouldn’t go to waste. I mean, it wouldn’t have gone to waste in the wild—something would have turned it into its meal—but I liked that they had a way of disposing roadkill responsibly, instead of just tossing it away like garbage. I was sick of being a secretary, so I asked for a job, and as hesitant as the bossman was, my new friend vouched for me, and I started a couple weeks later. I know that it’s not glamorous work, but someone has to do it, so it may as well be me, rather than some poor little thing who retches at the sight of blood and guts. Not everything about the job is like that, though. We would also get calls for animal abuse and neglect, and that was the part that I hated the most. Animals die, it happens, but there is no reason to take responsibility for a helpless creature if you’re not going to treat it right. So I wouldn’t say I loved every minute of my life, but I always felt useful, and I can die happy. I made pretty decent money, and retired with more than enough to support myself, and my family. Well, that’s about all I have to say for myself. I’m sure you were expecting something more interesting, but some of us just do what we can, and try not to make too many mistakes.

Extremus: Year 32

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When Olindse recovered from her bender, Kaiora asked her where she was while she was missing for eight months. The former chose to keep quiet, invoking her right to privacy as an admiral. Something happened while she was struggling through the alcohol poisoning. She couldn’t recall precisely what she experienced, but when she awoke, she had an epiphany. She wasn’t going to be ignored or dismissed anymore. She was so determined to alter her image that she refused to be known as a vice admiral anymore. Of course, this wasn’t something she could simply declare, but the crew could vote on it. Kaiora would have to put it up for a vote first, but after a speech or two, Olindse was able to convince her to do as much. It was unanimous, and she was promoted to full admiral. This gave her a little more autonomy, and allowed her to run certain aspects of the ship, with the Captain’s blessing. The prisoner rehabilitation program was going strong, and operating self-sufficiently. Olindse wasn’t really qualified to be too heavily involved in it, even though she was the one who came up with it. So she needed something else to preoccupy her time. She settled on holiday planning.

The crew and passengers nearly all descended from the universe-slash-planet of Ansutah. Only Omega has no ties to this world, but no one has seen him in years, so he barely counts anyway. Ansutah was populated by monsters, so it was a very dangerous place to live. Their ancestors relegated themselves to an entire continent, which the Maramon revered as a holy place that no one was allowed to visit. The humans kept themselves hidden by remaining in vast cavernous complexes, and under dense rainforest canopies, and by throttling their own technological development. Travel throughout the continent was limited, because they couldn’t invent airplanes, even though historical records showed that it was physically possible. Even above ground trains and vehicle roads were too risky. Boats were mostly pointless, because there was no reason to traverse the ocean. There were some bodies of water, of course, but they would be too exposed to satellites, and the like, so they went straight to submarines, and used them sparingly. But mostly they got around via a network of subway tunnels.

Besides the technological restrictions, there were some things they didn’t have because they didn’t want to be found out by the white monsters. Holiday celebrations were one of these things. They did observe a few important anniversaries, like the birth of a respected philosopher, or the invention of one of those pivotal technologies that made their lives more convenient while maintaining their high level of secrecy. Even so, they didn’t hold parades, or throw large parties, or put on live concerts. Music was not non-existent, but it evolved quite differently than on Earth, because they were just too afraid that a Maramon fishing boat would come a little too close to their landmass, and hear the ruckus. People had fun, and they enjoyed their lives, and though they lived under constant threat of being found out, they didn’t suffer from paranoia every second of every day. But they also valued quiet simplicity, because it was the best way to prevent things from getting out of hand. When the human refugees escaped into this universe 71 years ago, they held onto this value, because they didn’t know how to break free from it. They didn’t understand how parades came about, or how to promote a live concert. Very few people are alive who still remember Ansutah, but that doesn’t mean they’ve come up with their own holidays. And so Olindse and her new team has mostly been replicating Earthan observances. Today, that changes.

“Didn’t we just celebrate that, uh...” Kaiora snaps her fingers, trying to remember.

“Thanksgiving?”

“Thanksgiving, yes.”

“That was yesterday, yeah. I have to start planning for the next one now. Traditionally, Christmas preparations begin about a month prior.”

“Oh, Christmas? I didn’t really care for that one” Kaiora says.

“I want to do something different, which is why I’m asking for approval,” Olindse explains.

“Very well, what’s your pitch?”

“This time of year has a long history of being stolen by other cultures, and of various cultures celebrating their own holidays around the same time,” Olindse begins. “According to the ancient texts, it was once called, umm...” She has to consult her tablet. “Saturnalia. It was first commemorated by a group of people called...pagans? Christians took it to honor the birth of their god’s hooman son, who was probably actually born in spring. Then the corporations took it from them to rejoice in their capitalism. Other religions have done their own, unrelated things.”

“Which one did we do last year?” Kaiora asks.

“Well, we did all three of the main ones,” Olindse answers, “but we focused on the last one, because it demands the least amount of cultural appropriation.”

“And which one are you doing this year?”

“We’re continuing the tradition of stealing the day for our own purposes by honoring something else.”

“Which is...?”

Olindse waits to answer for dramatic effect. “Forgiveness.”

“Oh my God, this is about Halan Yenant.”

“What?”

“You’re trying to get him out of hock.”

“What are you talking about? No. What? No.”

“Yes, you are, this is your plan.”

“What makes you say that?” Olindse asks. How did she guess?

“Because I know you. The theme is forgiveness? Oh, come on, you think I’m an idiot?”

“Don’t you want this too?”

“Of course I do, but I can’t just let him go. He committed a crime.”

“He’s been doing very well in his counseling sessions.”

“And I’m happy for him, but...”

“But what?” Olindse urges. “He’s 56 years old.”

“What does that have to do with anything? Do you think that’s old?”

“According to history.”

“Yeah, on Ansutah. You’re getting confused. He’s fine, it would not be some kind of mercy release. He has many years ahead of him.”

“Not if he stays in there. Studies have shown that incarceration takes two years off of the life expectancy of an individual for every year behind bars.”

“That’s sad,” Kaiora agrees, “but the law is the law, and I am bound to it more than anyone. I have to maintain an example. If I try anything untoward, I could end up in the cell right next to him.”

“At worst, they would strip you of your rank.”

“Well, I don’t want that either..Olindse! Jesus!”

“All right, all right, all right,” Olindse says. “So let’s talk about it. You can’t release him for good, but we have to make a grand gesture in order to exemplify the spirit of forgiveness. People are expecting it.”

“Who’s expecting it? You just came up with this new holiday.”

“I’ve been talkin’ about it, just not with you.”

Kaiora sighs. “What did you have in mind?”

“A year.”

“A year, what?”

“Release Admiral Yenant for a year.”

“Civilian Halan Yenant,” she corrects. “You want me to let him go for a year, and then put him back in his cell after that? That would make us look worse than just leaving him in there for good. It would be so bizarre”

“Oh yeah, hmm. So, what’s your counter?”

“I didn’t know we were negotiating.”

“I’m always negotiatin’, baby”

Kaiora sighs again. “An hour. He can come out for part of a party.”

“A month.”

“A whole party; not just an hour of it.”

“A fortnight.”

“A day.”

“A week.”

“Okay, fine. A week.”

“A salmon week.”

“What the hell is a salmon week?”

“Eight days.”

“Why?”

“Some salmon have an extra day between Saturday and Sunday.”

Kaiora itches her cheek, and then it just snowballs into her massaging her whole face with both hands. “Very well, one salmon week.”

Olindse smiles, pleased with herself for managing to negotiate up to what she wanted all along. “I’ll go tell the party planning committee.”

“You’ll be making the shipwide announcement regarding this decision.”

She smiles wider. Even better.

“And you’ll be telling them that all of the prisoners will be temporarily released for that period of time.”

“Excuse me?” Olinde's questions.

“I mean, we can’t just let Halan go. That would be unfair. We obviously favor him, but if this—nay, your—holiday is about forgiveness, then we don’t really get to choose who we forgive, and who we don’t. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“You want to let a mutineer and a terrorist go free for a week?”

“I don’t want anything. This is all you...baby.” Kaiora doesn’t expect Olindse to change her mind due to this mandate. It’s a reasonable condition, and she knows this. What Kaiora wants is for the Admiral to take responsibility for this decision, so it doesn’t blow back on Kaiora, or the rest of the crew. It’s fine if she wants to do this, but she doesn’t get to do it free of consequences. If Halan is released alone, it will undoubtedly go well, and Olindse will be able to use this as evidence that he ought to be released permanently, and perhaps even reinstated as an admiral himself. But the poor optics will do lasting damage to the passengers’ confidence in the crew to remain impartial and unbiased. By packaging him with Ovan and Dvronen, Kaiora has ensured that Olindse’s objective is not realized too easily. Yes, the Captain does ultimately want Halan to go free too, but while most of the ship agrees with them, there is a significant population which does not. Favoring one prisoner over the others threatens the stability of society, and risks the crew crumbling to the whims of a hypothetical new government administration that builds itself upon a foundation of integrity and justice. Ovan and Dvronen will almost certainly screw this up, but it will look fair, and that’s really all that matters, politically speaking.

Olindse straightens herself out, and nods. “Excellent idea. I shall prepare a statement.”

Vice Admiral Thatch yawns before he can get a word in. “Sorry. That story wasn’t boring, I’m just very tired.” Two years ago, Olindse returned to the extraction room, and summoned Thatch again to ask him for advice on what she should tell Captain Leithe about where she had been for the previous eight months. It was he who suggested that she had every right to just say almost nothing at all. Time travel is a tricky thing, and while it is possible to exploit this for personal gain, or personal agenda, it’s entirely rational to demand secrecy in these matters. For instance, Thatch now has a decent idea of when he’s going to die, and what kind of relationship he’ll have with his captain when it happens. This gives him a little insight into the future, but he knows that saying too much to others could jeopardize the timeline. Olindse was able to claim to know enough about the future that explaining her absence might do the same. It didn’t necessarily have to be true. She just had to convince Kaiora that it wasn’t worth this risk. This tactic worked, and ever since then, Olindse has continued going to Thatch for guidance. To communicate, they no longer use the extraction mirror, but a different time mirror, which Old Man gave to him long ago, and which was still in a secret compartment in his office. They’re both using the same exact mirror, but Thatch is in possession of it in 2286, and Olindse has been using it in the present.

“Do you want me to call back later?” she offers.

“No, I’m all right. But, uh...was there a question in all that?”

“How do I justify releasing the other two prisoners, and how do I keep them in line for the eight-day period?”

“Why would you want to?”

“Well, if they cause trouble, the good prisoner is at risk. People won’t want to see him released one day if they think something like that could happen again.” She’s not naming names, again to protect the timeline.

“Not if you frame it right.”

“How would I frame it?”

“Don’t just let the two mystery bad prisoners you told me about agitate the status quo. Actively encourage them to do it, but...ya know, covertly. This good prisoner that you like will then be able to step up, and be the hero that saves the day. I know that’s not your strong suit, but with my help, you’ll be able to manipulate them to do what you want.”

“That may be so, but I could never trick the good prisoner. He has too much integrity. He would stop it before anything happens, and then your whole gambit doesn’t work.”

“Trust me, you wouldn’t have to manipulate Halan to do the hero thing. It’s in his nature. All you have to do is worry about the other two. He’ll react accordingly on his own.”

“I never told you that Halan was the good prisoner.”

“I read between the lines,” Thatch admits. “The way you talk about him, that only describes one person in the whole universe.”

“You can’t say anything,” Olindse reminds him.

“Literally, I can’t.” Thatch holds a little green plastic bottle in front of the mirror. “These eye drops will erase my memories. I won’t remember any of this.”

“Won’t you experience missing time?”

Now Thatch pulls a bottle of liquor into frame. “I lose chunks of time all the time. I learned long ago to just let it go. If whatever I did while I was blacked out doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass, then I obviously don’t have to worry about what it was.”

“That’s a scary way to live your life, man.”

Thatch shrugs, takes a sip, and sets the bottle back down. “It works for me.”

Olindse nods, not in understanding, but understanding that he believes as much about his own lifestyle, and that that’s never going to change.

“So how ‘bout it, Full Admiral Olindse Belo? Want me to teach you how to manipulate a couple o’ bad guys?”

Olindse thinks about it for a moment. There are some pretty problematic ethical implications for trying something so shady. Still, Halan must be set free, and if this is one step towards that goal, she has to do it. She has to do whatever it takes. “Teach me.”

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