Incarnations

 The greatest avalanche begins with the slightest movement of the smallest pebble.

The replacement designated JOY UNIT 61-182-21 was deliberately entering a state of deep trouble by disobeying the orders of her guardian.

On the first night of the flight out from Earth she had been directed by her guardian to remain in the luxury suite aboard the liner Freyaspace Reliable for the duration of the voyage and to remain naked except the gold bands of her status around her neck, wrists, and ankles.

At the first opportunity she consciously chose to not obey the order.

The chief bodyguard of the guardian, a Xenophonian mercenary had gone to sleep.  This was contrary to the orders given by his employer.  He was to keep watch on the joy unit and prevent her from leaving the suite.  She took this moment of slackness as an opportunity to escape.  She found and donned her pea green colored transfer suit.  She wore the suit during the transfer from the home of her guardian in the newly rebuilt city of Chicago to his suite aboard the liner in Earth orbit and it was all she had to wear at this time.  To be safe she put on the full head cover, which kept her hair in place during free fall conditions and only showed her face.

She checked her makeup before leaving the suite.  It appeared to be modestly applied.  Or that it would appear to be insufficiently applied by the standards of her trainers and her guardian.

She silently opened the door to the suite.  She slowly emerged from the suite and saw no one in the corridor of the luxury deck on the liner.  She then closed the door with a gentle click.  She started to move slowly down the corridor.  She felt slight more than one tenth the force of gravity she’d felt on Earth.  If her recollection was correct, the sick bay she saw on the safety tour of the liner that was required of all the passengers should be two decks down on the vertically oriented ship.

Perhaps someone on staff could help her there.  All she had to do now was to find the stairs down.

As she gained confidence in moving down the corridor a cabin door opened ahead of her.

She stopped. She was now afraid.

A young man stepped out of the suite.  Like her he had blond hair and blue eyes, but without the high class nose she was designed with.  He was dressed correctly for dinner, in all black, but with an emphasis on practical comfort over flash in style.  His hair was slightly longer than the military standard, parted on the left, and cut for comfort instead of the current fashionable youth style.   And he stood in the corridor not as if he were an inexperienced youth but as a very experienced man.

He didn’t fit in any category of persons she was programmed to identify.  And he appeared to be only four years older than her.

The young man looked at her and spoke.

“Hello.”  He said to her with an upper Midwest American accent.  Specifically from Old Minnesota on Earth.  With the one word she perceived that his voice was not of an inexperienced youth of eighteen years but clearly that of a fully mature and experienced adult.

She was speechless.

“Is there a problem, Miss?”  He said.

He slowly stepped toward her.  He walked as if he were completely familiar with moving in the slightly more than one tenth internal gravity of the accelerating ship.

She hesitated to answer.

“No.”  She replied.

The young man stopped.  He looked straight at her eyes and spoke again.

“You have a problem,” he said, “and you wish to solve it yourself?”

She thought for a moment, and then answered.

“Yes,” she said, “I need to go to the sick bay.”

He nodded, and then replied.

“Okay,” he said, “if you’d follow me, please.”

She hesitated, and then spoke again.

“I don’t mean to trouble you.”

The young man quickly responded.

“It’s no trouble at all,” he said, “I own the ship.”

He then looked at her head cover, and spoke again.

“And we’re under acceleration,” he said, “so you don’t need to wear that awful head cover.”

He stood still, as if he were waiting for her to take it off.  As he was the owner of the ship he would come to know her true status immediately.  There was no point in continuing to wear the cover.

She opened the front under the chin and lifted the cover off of her head.  The gold status band on her neck became visible.

He saw the band on her neck, and then spoke.

“You’re a joy unit?”

“Yes.”  She replied.  “How did you know?”

“You’re wearing the gold slave collar and you’ve more makeup on you than a Hennepin Avenue hooker.”

She had no idea what a Hennepin Avenue hooker was.  She pointed to the collar and replied defensively.

“It’s a status band.”

He briefly shook his head and then spoke.

“Status band is a polite euphemism for a slave collar.  But then the word replacement in present Terran society is a polite euphemism for a slave.  And the word guardian is a polite euphemism for a slave owner.”

His voice then took on a hard edge.

“Which in a real society is a polite euphemism for a piece of subhuman garbage fit only for extermination. But that’s only my opinion.”

The young man asked another question.

“Does the collar have a monomolecular filament for cutting off the head by remote control?”

“Yes.”  She replied.

She remembered when an older and used up joy unit which had been returned to the manufacturer had been brought in to demonstrate the function of the termination system to the newly hatched units.  The creche supervisor pressed the button, and head, hands, and feet of the demonstration unit were suddenly severed by the single molecule thread in each band as they each shrunk to a single point of matter.  Blood sprayed out from the neck, wrists, and ankles of the used up unit.

All of the newly hatched joy units in the room, including her, screamed and cried at the sight of the demonstration of the device.  She remembered the event as though it happened yesterday.

The young man nodded.  And then he spoke.

“We do have the tools for removing it down in the sick bay, let’s go down there.”  He said.   “Now.”

As both of them walked down the corridor he asked her a question.

“Were you ever given a proper name?”

“No.” She replied.

“People have proper names.”  He said. “You’re a person.  That’s another thing we’ll have to work on.”

As they made their way to the stairs a cabin door opened behind them.  The chief bodyguard stepped out into the corridor.  He saw the young man and the young woman and shouted.

“YOU!  STOP!”

The mercenary began to run down the corridor.  But he lacked experience in moving in a low gravity environment and with his first step arced upwards into the ceiling.

“Idiot.”  Said the young man.

As the mercenary slowly dropped back to the deck the young man drew a mass driver pistol from a holster under the left shoulder and carefully stepped forward to the point of the mercenary’s impact.  He solidly locked the sights of his pistol on the mercenary’s head as he carefully stepped forward.

The young man shouted at the mercenary with the voice of military experience and authority.

“STAY DOWN! REMAIN ON THE DECK!”

The mercenary looked up to see what appeared to be a toy pistol aimed directly at his head.  It appeared to be a single unit in dark gray plastic without a separate slide and frame, or an ejection port for the expended cartridge.  The bore of the pistol appeared to be smaller than the bore of a standard training weapon.  And the authority of the young man’s voice mattered not at all to the mercenary.  What did matter was that the voice that carried the accent of a citizen of the planet Freya, the mortal enemies of what remained of the Xenophonian people.  He wasn’t about to surrender to what his own eyes obviously saw as a young punk with a toy pistol from Freya.

The mercenary pushed himself off the deck.  The young man pulled the trigger of the driver pistol. The four millimeter projectile, made of depleted uranium with a stainless steel jacket, made only a supersonic crack in the air before it struck the mercenary in the center of the forehead, tumbled within his braincase, and sprayed his blood and brain matter out from the back of his head.  The remains of the mercenary dropped to the deck.

An alarm automatically sounded throughout the ship. And a telephone rang in the young man’s coat pocket.

He pulled it out and answered.

“Yes, Captain.”  He said.  “There’s been a deadly force incident on passenger deck one with one man down.  He’s dead. Send up the clean up crew.  And please have the thread cutter kit in sick bay ready to go.  I’m bringing the patient down right now.”

The young man pocketed the phone returned his weapon to the holster.

“Let’s go.”  He said.

As the young woman and the young man went down two flights of stairs she asked him a question.

“That was a Xenophonian warrior, how could ... how could you kill him?”

He thought for a moment, and then answered.

“The Xenophon Mercenary Corporation, what’s left of them, are nothing more than a band of thugs with the delusion of superhuman superiority.”  He said.  “Shooting them is neither an ethical or a technical problem at all.”

She accepted the answer.

The sick bay was on a crew quarters deck.  There were three women in hospital scrubs and white lab coats already waiting for them there.

The young man introduced them.

“Miss, this is the ship’s doctor, Doctor Hart, her assistant Nurse Church, and my personal physician, Doctor Adams.”

He then turns to speak to the medical staff.

“This young lady was a sex slave brought aboard by a moron from Earth.  We need to cut off the collar and the other bands.”

All three of the women nodded. And then Doctor Adams spoke.

“Evelyn, you need to step back.”

“Right.”  He replied as he complied with his own doctor’s request.

Doctor Adams closed the curtain around the examination table.  Evelyn listened as the staff helped the young lady out of her transfer suit and into a hospital gown.

When they were finished Doctor Adams opened the curtain.

The young woman was sitting on the examination table. Doctor Hart placed the cutting device on the neck band under the right ear.

“Are you ready?” She said to the young woman.

The young woman was shaking.  She was clearly in a state of fear when she replied.

“They ... they ... terminated an old unit ... at the facility ... with all five bands ... there was blood everywhere.”

Evelyn responded with a question.

“They murdered a woman to demonstrate the system?”

“Yes.”  She replied.

Evelyn nodded and then asked another question.

“You are afraid that the other bands will function when we cut the neck band?”

“Yes.” She said.

“Well,” said Evelyn, “the worst thing that could happen to you now if that happens is that we’ll put your hands and feet into deep freeze and place you in hibernation and then surgically reattach everything when we return to Freya.”

The young woman stopped shaking.

“It will hurt like Hell, but you’ll live.”  He said.

The young woman nodded.

Doctor Hart spoke.

“Are you ready?”

The young woman replied.

“Yes.”

Doctor Hart nodded and then pressed down on cutting device.  The device made a loud click sound and the collar fell away to her shoulders. The other bands didn’t react.  There was no blood spraying all over the sick bay.

“Well then,” said Evelyn, “monomolecular threads are damned expensive.”

As Doctor Hart was positioning the cutter on the right wrist Nurse Church spoke up.

“This person will need a name.”  She said.  “We can’t keep on addressing her as ‘hey you.’”

“Of course.”  Evelyn replied.

The cutter clicked again.  The wrist band fell away.  A tattoo on the inner side of the right wrist was now in full view.  The tattoo was of a corporate logo and the characters, “JOYUNIT 61-182-21.”

Evelyn recognized the logo.  He spoke to the young lady.

“It appears that you’re a product of the Grande-Sinjoro Corporation.”  He said.  “I should send a nice present to one of their future board meetings.”

“A present?”  Said the young lady.

“What did you have in mind?”  Asked Doctor Adams.

“A ten kiloton suitcase nuke.”  He replied.

Doctor Hart cut off the band on the left wrist.

“I thought ours were rated at twenty kilotons?”  She said.

“Whatever.”  Said Evelyn.  “As long as it works.”

The young woman spoke up.

“What’s a suitcase nuke?”

Evelyn answered.

“It’s a very efficient and a very concealable way to kill a lot of very bad people.”

Doctor Hart had finished positioning the cutter on the left ankle when she spoke.

“The patient does need a proper name.” She said. “‘Jane Doe’ isn’t going to cut it.”

“Jane Doe?”  Said the young woman.

Evelyn answered.

“The police would traditionally use that name in their documents for a female victim whose name wasn’t known to them.”

Doctor Hart cut off the left ankle band.

Doctor Adams spoke to the young woman.

“You do strongly resemble Princess Diana.”

“Who?”  Said the young woman.

Evelyn answered.

“Diana Spencer, she was born a bit over three centuries ago.  She was named after a pagan goddess of the hunt.  She was a naive young lady who was used by the British royal family as a walking womb and then dumped.  After the divorce she was killed in a completely senseless ground traffic accident.  I never met her during my first incarnation. And I was already on Mars when her sole surviving son was elected to be the second President of the Federation.”

Nurse Church spoke up.

“Someone may have saved a copy of her genome on file.”

Evelyn replied.

“Or, given the state of ethical degeneration I’ve seen on Earth, it’s possible that a walking piece of garbage may have desecrated her grave to obtain a DNA sample.”

Doctor Hart then cut off the band on the right ankle.

“There.”  She said.  “We’re finished.”

The young woman stood up.  Free at last.

She thought for a moment.  And then spoke.

“I like the name, Diana.”

Everyone nodded.  Evelyn replied.

“Well then, your name is Diana, you now have a proper name.”

Evelyn’s phone rang in the coat pocket.

“Just a moment.”  He said.  “I need to answer this.”

Evelyn stepped away from the table to answer the phone.

“Yes.”  He said.

The voice on the line was the captain of the ship, Deborah Hausa.

“Sir, we have a hostage situation in the main dining room.”

“I’ll be right down.”  He replied.

“Yes, sir.” Said Captain Hausa.

He turned to the ladies in the sick bay and spoke.

“We have another emergency. Someone is being really stupid.  I’ll be right back.”

The main dining room was two decks down.

Diana asked a question.

“What did he mean when he said someone is being really stupid?”

Doctor Adams answered.

“With Evelyn it means that whoever caused the problem is already dead.”

Diana had another question.

“And he said something about having a first incarnation?”

Doctor Adams answered.

“The original version of Evelyn Alexander Charon spent most of the last two centuries in cryogenic stasis.  A bit over eight standard years ago we cloned him.  We then thawed out the original person and copied his mind and memories into the new body.  We call it reincarnation by technological means.  It’s similar to the process by which you were created, but used in an ethically proper fashion.”

Diana had another question.

“What happened to the original Evelyn Alexander Charon?”

Doctor Adams smiled.

“He’s undergoing a current state of the art aging control treatment.”  She said. “ And unlike his duplicate he’s being a complete grouch about it.”

“May I ask one more question?”  Said Diana.

“Yes.” Said Doctor Adams.

“Does Evelyn always come to someone’s rescue?”

Doctor Adams answered directly.

“When he was growing up in his first incarnation he usually played a paladin in Dungeons And Dragons.”

“What’s Dungeons And Dragons?”  Diana asked.

On the dining room deck the second incarnation of Evelyn Alexander Charon met Captain Hausa in the corridor outside the dining room.

Captain Deborah Hausa was in her midforties in age and statuesque in build and one of the rare Freyans who was directly descended from a native African, her paternal grandfather.

“Situation?”  He said.

Captain Hausa looked at the notepad she was holding.

“Douglas Wolfe, the idiot who brought the sex toy aboard and his three remaining guards have taken three hostages with table knives in the dining room.”  She replied.  “We evacuated the remaining passengers to the corridor.”

Charon looked up and down the corridor.  Formally dressed passengers were seated on the deck or leaning with their backs against the walls.

“Any demands yet?”  He said.

“He wants his sex toy returned.”  Said Captain Hausa.  “And he wants to be returned to Earth.”

“Out of the question.”  He replied.

Captain Hausa nodded in agreement.

“Yes.”  She said.

One of the formally dressed passengers, seated on the deck, shouted to Hausa and Charon.

“Just give him what he wants!”  The elderly man said.

Evelyn Charon decided to point his right finger and reply to the old man with the full voice of authority.

“One more word and you won’t receive the standard refund for being a victim in a terrorist action!”

The old man was silenced.

Charon resumed his discussion with Captain Hausa.

“Let’s get the passengers back to their staterooms for now.”

“Yes, sir.”  Captain Hausa replied.

She gave to necessary orders to the staff on deck.

“Is there anything else I need to know about this group?”

“Yes, sir,” said Captain Hausa, “the three bodyguards are from the planet Hope.”

“And they’re guarding a slave owner?”

“Yes, sir.” She replied.

Hope, a world orbiting Procyon, was one of the first worlds outside the Solar System to be colonized. African-Americans, who generally didn’t fit into the main stream of Federation society, especially in North America, were very strongly encouraged to settle there.

“What we have here is a very serious belief check failure.”

“Sir,” said Captain Hausa, “they translated Mein Kampf into their primary dialect.”

“And the damned thing was bad enough in the original German.”  Charon replied.  “But it’s nice to know what psychological buttons to we have to push.”

Charon looked around.  The security team, four members of the crew who were now armed with optically sighted driver carbines, wore tactical vests over their normal shipboard uniforms, and wore tactical helmets, were standing on the deck waiting for their orders.

“Who’s the team leader?”

The nearest woman on the team replied.

“I am, sir.”

“Right,” said Charon, “I want you to place their leader under arrest, use a butt stroke if you have to.”

“Yes, sir!”

He spoke the other team members.

“You three, from left to right each of you will aim for the heads on each thug, on my command you will take them out.  Do you understand?”

They responded in the affirmative.

“Alright,” he said, “let’s dance.”

Charon slowly entered the dining room followed by the security team.

The three males from Hope each held an expensively dressed woman with a table knife at the throat.  Their employer was a young male in his mid-twenties, he had long and absurdly kempt hair and was dressed in the current youth fashion of Earth.

The employer turned to Charon and shouted.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Charon ignored the obscenity and replied.

“Evelyn Alexander Charon, Chairman of the Board of the Freyaspace Corporation, and you are?”

The three men from Hope became visibly nervous and started looking at each other for support. The employer replied.

“You know who the fuck I am!”

Charon refrained from smiling and replied.

“You apparently lack an understanding of basic courtesy.”

“Fuck that!  I want my bitch back and I want to go back to Earth!”

Charon shook his head.

“You also lack an understanding of basic ethics.  A person isn’t property. And I’m not going to start on the subject of astronautics.”

Wolfe pulled a small device with a visible red button out of a pocket.

“Fuck you!”  He shouted.  “Give me my bitch back or I’ll kill it!”

“Go ahead.”  Said Charon calmly.  “Push the button.”

Wolfe smiled as he pressed down on the red button.

“There!  Its dead!”  He shouted.  “What you gonna do now?”

Charon shook his head before calmly replying.

“Did you even bother to change the battery on the kill switch?  We already cut off the bands.  She’s now a free woman with a proper name.  And there’s nothing you or your connections on Earth can do about it.”

Charon now turned his attention to the three men from Hope.

“And you gentlemen, you should be ashamed of yourselves, being employed by a slave owner.”

“What you talkin’ about?”  The man in the middle responded.  “That cracker bitch don’t mean shit to us!”

“Of course not.”  Said Charon.  “Humans only mean something to humans.”

The man on the left shouted.

“Who the fuck are you to talk shit to us?”

Now Evelyn Alexander Charon smiled.

“You should already know who I am.”  He said.  “I was born eleven minutes and six seconds after President Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas.  I was present in the United States when I saw that it was time for a change.  I Killed President Hope and his cabinet while the First Lady screamed in vain.  ‘Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.’”

All three of the men from Hope suddenly realized that the man deemed to be the incarnation of Lucifer, who in the history that was taught on Hope killed their leader and brought down their people centuries ago on Earth, was now standing before them.

They all released their hostages and began to charge forward towards Charon.

Charon shouted the order.

“Fire!”

All three driver carbines fired as if they were one.  All three of the men from Hope fell to the deck at the same time.

The security team leader now moved forward.  She spoke to Wolfe.

“Douglas Wolfe, you’re under arrest for the crime of enslavement, this is a capital crime.”

Wolfe shouted.

“Fuck you bitch!”

The team leader, in accordance to her training, swung the carbine.  With her left hand on the forward grip and her right hand grasping the stock she forcefully connected the butt of the weapon to Wolfe’s head.  He was knocked to the deck unconscious.

Captain Hausa stepped into the dining room.

She looked at the remains of the men from Hope.

“‘Those who dehumanize others only dehumanize themselves.’” She quoted.

“Well, I thought it was an obvious fact.” He replied.

“And you didn’t mention the time you saved the survivors of the State of Israel?”

“So file a complaint with the poet board.”  He replied.  “Let’s get this mess cleaned up.”

After the hostages were taken to the sick bay, the bodies were bagged, the mess cleaned up in the dining room, and the paperwork filled out, Evelyn Charon and Captain Hausa held a meeting in her office.

“We’re ready to dump the bodies.”  She said.

“I know you don’t like pushing dead mass, but I think we should make the jump to the Nowhere System first.”

“Why?”

“This is going to be a long answer.” He said.

“I’m listening.”

“In my experience those who believe they are exempt from the law, as with narcissists like Mister Wolfe, often do so because they have a connection within the government, or what now passes for a government on Earth.  That connection will now be used against us.  And we’ll be the ones treated as criminals.”

“But we’re in the right.”  She said.

“With narcissists right and wrong are irrelevant.  What matters to them, and only what matters, is that we submit to their will.”

“Just like Islam.”  She replied.

“Yes.”  He said.  “Just like Islam.”

Captain Hausa thought for a moment.

“If the opposition goes fully Soviet on us,” she said, “they’ll manufacture evidence to use against us, it won’t matter if we dump the bodies now or not.”

“I can see that.”  He replied.  “Let’s dump the bodies then.

“Yes, sir.”

Captain Hausa had another question.

“How does this effect the underground space line?”

“Aversely, I would think.”  He replied. “Very adversely.”

On this run alone there were already twelve escaped slaves traveling in secret on the hibernation deck.

“I’m afraid this incident may cause us to curtail further transport operations from Earth.”  He said.  “It’s too bad there aren’t any independent ship owners who could take up the load.”

Captain Hausa had a thought.

“The company still has ships in storage from the time of the big lift from Mars.  We could reactivate some of those ships as part of an independent space line and flag them from another independent planet.”

He looked directly at her.

“Do you think you can pull it off?”

“I know I can.”  She said with confidence.

“Please have the proposal in writing before we reach home.”

“Yes, sir.”

Charon had another thought.

“This situation will become much uglier.”

“In what way, sir?”

“Those who believe themselves to be superior beings hate to held to a valid moral standard, for example the National Socialists in Germany.”  He said. “ And they violently express their rage not only at those who hold them to the moral standard, but also those who’re conveniently in range.”

“Yes.”  Said Captain Hausa.

“The people in the support network on Earth are clearly in danger.”  He said.  “It’s time to evacuate the last good people on Earth.”

“We’re not the angels of the Lord, sir.”  She said.

“Well, someone has to do the job.”  He replied.  “God won’t.”

Captain Hausa had another thought.

“Sir, some people at home would say that you we are acting altruistically.”

“And I can’t be a selfish bastard if I can’t live with myself.”

“I don’t remember reading that, sir.”  She replied.

“I just thought of it.”  He said.  “It comes with the job.”

Evelyn Charon had another thing to say.

“There will be a war.”  He said.  “And I would expect it to be the bloodiest war in human history.”

“We won our own War Of Independence.”  She replied.

“We were lucky.  Your grandfather was the smartest and most experienced general officer alive at the time.  And the central government on Earth wasn’t prepared for a war at that time.”  He said. “But we may have to bring him out of cold storage to fight this war as well.”

Captain Hausa could only nod her head in agreement.

Evelyn Charon was tired after the meeting but he thought he had to return to the sick bay.  It was there that he found Diana had been cleaned up and transferred to a normal hospital bed.

Asleep and without the horrid makeup, even in the subdued light of the sick bay, she was angelic in appearance.

Doctor Adams gently stepped up behind him and softly spoke.

“Now what?”

Evelyn softly answered.

“She goes through the healing process and personal growth and lives a proper human life.”

Doctor Adams asked another question.

“Are you prepared to see her go through it?”

Evelyn looked at her. He didn’t have an answer.

Doctor Adams spoke again.

“Are you willing to accept the responsibility?”

“Yes.”  He said.

He thought for a moment and then spoke again.

“Now that Alex is up and about he could use a project to keep him tied to the home office.”

“You’re not walking away from this one!”  She responded.

“You know him.”  He replied.  “As soon as he is healthy enough he’ll be up to his neck working to solve the problems we’re now stuck with.”

Cheryl Adams shook her head.  Evelyn responded.

“Alex made every effort to be a good husband and father.”  He said.  “He can be one again, and you should marry him.”

Her eyes widened.

“I love you.”  She responded.

He answered her.

“I love you Cheryl, but I can’t, I simply can’t.  My first wife, Susan, and our daughter Alice, were murdered by a Muslim suicide bomber, and Sonya and I were married after she survived the Second Holocaust.  I can’t expect this incarnation to be any quieter.”

He continued to speak softly.

“I love you, but now there’s a storm coming, I’m not counting on surviving it, and I’m not leaving a widow behind.”

He kissed her on the forehead and spoke softly.

“Goodnight.”

There was nothing else he could do.
 
It was time to clean up the mess.

The first part of the process was to remove the biohazard fluids, blood, brain matter and urine, left on the decks by the dead thugs.  This was followed by the examination for evidence of the staterooms and luggage of the offenders.  This task was left to the security chief of the ship, Julie Canny.

The three thugs from Hope had clothing that was flashy and ill fitting.  Designed to be worn by those who barely engaged in any thought.  And with the belief that it was effective for attracting attention from those who didn’t think.

The little intellectual material found on their notebook computers reflected the culture of their home world.  Full hatred for all races other than their own.  Extreme hatred of the Freyans.  Hatred of any form of independent thought and material success in reality.  The entertainment material was incoherent noise masquerading as music and some very hardcore pornography.

Their computers and clothing were ejected out the airlock with the mortal remains.

The Xenophonian mercenary was more interesting.

His personal clothing and other items were plain and practical.  His notebook computer took some effort to crack into.  Once the computer was cracked it was very apparent that in addition to working as the chief bodyguard of Wolfe, he also intended to perform a reconnaissance on a Freyan ship on behalf of the Xenophon Mercenary Corporation. Julie discussed the sections of the ship that were priorities for examination with the engineer, Mr. Czech.  In his opinion the information sought would be required to carry out a sabotage operation.

The Xenophonian’s body was placed in cryogenic storage on the hibernation deck and his computer and personal effects placed in secure storage to be turned over to Confederation military intelligence.

The apparel of Douglas Wolfe followed the current youth fashion on Earth.  This meant that he apparently put no thought into the acquisition or the appearance of it.

The notebook computer was another can worms altogether.

There were no intellectual text files present apart from an annotated English language translation of the Koran.  The music and video files followed the current entertainment fashion on Earth

This was no surprise.

The visual pornography files were very graphic and very sadistic in content.

Then Canny opened the file folder labeled DONNER.

If the images were computer generated then they were very indicative of a very deep psychological disorder.  If the images were real then they were hard evidence of a series of serious, sadistic, and lethal crimes.

Wolfe also had in his possession a hardbound copy of a work simply titled THE BOOK OF PEACE.

The computer, book, and Wolfe’s personal effects were placed in secure storage to be turned over to the Confederation police on Freya.

At the midpoint of their flight through the Solar System the liner went into free fall mode for turnover.  Although there was a way to continue acceleration during a turnover the Freyaspace management had concluded that it was a waste of reaction mass.

Just short of the jump point the Reliable came almost to a dead stop before the engines were shut off. The ship was in free fall mode and set to slowly coast through the location of the jump point in normal space.

Evelyn and Diana were belted into their observer seats on the command deck.  Diana had wore no makeup and had her hair cut to a practical length and was wearing slippers and scrubs from the sickbay.

From Evelyn’s view she was stunning.

“So how does the jump drive work?”  Diana asked.

“Good question.”  Said Evelyn.  “The closest thing I heard to a clear answer is that we’re taking advantage of a cosmic loophole.”

“In both the literal and metaphorical sense of the word?”

“Yes.” He replied.

In spite of the manufacturer’s training Diana was showing a great amount of curiosity and a willingness to learn.  But then she did initiate her escape on her own.  Once she had her own access to the ship’s network she devoured intellectual files as if there were no tomorrow.  In any case this was in Evelyn’s opinion a good sign.

The first officer spoke.

“Captain, all stations report ready for jump.”

Even though she checked the clock herself she followed the established procedure.

“Time to jump?”  She asked.

“Two minutes, forty seconds.”

“This is the most boring part.”  Evelyn said softly.

The first officer counted off the time to jump at fifteen second intervals.  And then began a full count at fifteen seconds.

At five seconds Evelyn spoke to Diana.

“Close your eyes.”

At the moment of jump the universe disappeared...

...and then reappeared.

When Diana recovered from the effects of the jump she spoke.

“What just happened?”

It took ten seconds for Evelyn to answer.

“It’s called jump shock or jump discontinuity.”  He said.

“It felt like I didn’t exist?”

“Yes.”  He said.  “Like reality became unreal for a moment.”

“Why?”

He looked at her.

“I have no idea.”  He said.  “No one does.”

DX Cancri was a red dwarf star that was almost twelve light years from Earth.  It only had nine percent of the mass of the Sun.  The lesser effect of the red dwarf’s gravity allowed the points from and to which ships could jump to be much closer together in space.  This had the practical effect of shortening the travel time and reducing the reaction mass requirements for crossing the system.  In addition to the point to the Solar System, DX Cancri also had jump points to fifteen other stars.

The port for the system was on an airless and ice covered satellite of an gas giant planet.  Someone with a sense of humor named it Nowhere.

On the approach to Nowhere three women were having a discussion in the sick bay.

“You want me to what?”  Said Diana.

Doctor Hart replied.

“We need to take your physical measurements so we could go shopping for you on the station.”

“Why can’t I go shopping myself?”

Doctor Adams answered.

“On this ship you’re a person.”  She said.  “The station is Federation territory, where you’re still classed as property.  And as an escaped slave you’re subject to summary execution upon identification.”

“So I can’t go?”  Said Diana.

“Correct,” said Doctor Adams, “so we’ll have to go for you.”

“And you’ll have all the fun?”  Asked Diana.

Doctor Hart replied.

“Well no.  We can bring up the catalog and you can make your choices here.  We’ll then go aboard the station and pick up the order.”

Doctor Hart brought up a catalog page on her workstation.

“Star-Mart isn’t the best retailer of women’s clothes in the Known Universe, but they’re on the Nowhere station, you can do a better job of shopping and have proper fun when we reach home.”

An announcement was made on the shipboard address system.

“One hour to free fall mode.”

As Diana was vicariously shopping with the doctors Evelyn was observing ship’s operations on the command deck.  When she found a break in procedures Captain Hausa walked over to and sat down next to him.

“Boss, we have a problem.”  She said.

“What is it?”

“Two agents of the Federation Investigation Service want to talk to you.”

“No.”  He responded.  “They should know better than to even make that request of someone with a diplomatic passport.”

“I took the liberty of making an inquiry.”  She said.  “Their address on the station is located in the section belonging to the Office of Replacement Retirement.”

Evelyn nodded.

“That’s such a lame designation for a murder squad.”  He said.  “Let’s be safe and assume the worst case is now in effect.  No one who’s not scheduled to transfer at the station leaves the ship. We top off the reaction mass tanks and go.”

“Yes, sir.”  Said Captain Hausa.

Charon decided to remain on the command deck while the ship was docked at the station.

Diana had made her way to the command deck while the ship was in the free fall condition. She wore velcro grip gloves and slippers.  She’d learned to do the Kubrick walk in the weightless condition.

“Sit down and strap in.”  Evelyn said.

Diana did so.

“What happened?”  She asked.

“The slave murder squad wants a word with me.  I said no.”

She stared at him.

“Try to not worry, we’ll top off the tanks and be out of here.”

She nodded.

Charon continued to sit on the command deck and supervise.  Before the top off procedure was almost complete his personal phone rang.

“Yes Captain?”  He said.

“Sir, we have another problem.”

“What is it?”

“The thugs are stopping the remass procedure and said they’re aiming the station’s weapons at the ship. They want to speak to you, NOW.”

Charon thought for a moment.

“I’ll meet with them at the passenger airlock.  Have the security team ready to repel boarders.”

“Yes, sir.”

Diana spoke.

“What’s happening?”

“The slave murder squad is being really stupid.”  He replied.  “They’re threatening to use force. I’m going to have a nice little chat with them.”

“I want to be there.”  Diana said.

“They want to kill you.”

“I’m responsible for my own life.”

“Yes, you are.”  Charon replied.  “But I won’t let them take you while I’m alive.”

Diana nodded.

“Let’s go.”  He said.

The security team were setting up at the nearest corridor crossing to the airlock.  They were wearing their zero-g combat overalls, with velcro patches to allow the wearers to attach themselves to the deck or those sections of wall and ceiling that were also covered with velcro. They also had two squad support weapons. They were the four millimeter mass driver technology replacement for the general purpose machine gun. The gunners had locked the five hundred round ammunition cassettes in place. The bipods were set into slots in the walls for operation in the free fall environment.  To civilian eyes the slots appeared to be solely decorative.  The optical sights on the weapons were at the single red dot setting for zero-g.

The two other team members carried what appeared to be telescopes with bipods, pistol grips, and rifle stocks.  There were power cords for the laser weapons running to packs on each crew members back.

All members of the security team were using the corners of the entry corridor to mask their bodies from view from the airlock.  With only the head, arms, and shoulders being visible.

When the security team was ready the leader spoke.

“We’re ready.”  Said Julie.

Attached to the deck with their velcro shoes just three meters short of the airlock were Evelyn Charon, Captain Hausa, and Diana.

“Good.”  Said Evelyn.

He turned to the Captain.

“You don’t have to be here.”

“I’m the captain.  I have to be here.” She replied.  “And I wouldn’t miss the work of a master.”

“I wouldn’t quite put it that way.”  He replied.

He turned to Diana.

“You don’t have to be here.”  He said.

“I’m not leaving your side.

He looked straight ahead.

“Right then.  Remember, fear is an emotion, fear is the negation of thought, I will pass by the state of fear to the state of reason.”  He said.

Charon placed his hands on his hips and issued the order.

“Open the airlock.”

The door to the Nowhere Station slid open.

On the far side of the airlock, still within the station was a black clad group of eight men. Each of them were armed with the nine millimeter ACRS.  The shortened version of the last generation of chemically fueled assault weapons issued by the Federation armed forces.  Their feet were attached to the deck with velcro slippers over their combat boots.

Morons.  Charon thought. The first man to fire a round would be propelled backwards.  And he would knock back everyone behind him in a free fall domino effect.

Which would be absurd if they weren’t deployed to do it for real.

Beyond the would-be storm troopers were two men, an older African-American and a younger Caucasian with an appalling boy band hair style.  They wore suits and ties.  Stationed on a space station they should’ve already known that neckties and the weightless condition didn’t mix.

They had to be the gentlemen from the Office of Replacement Retirement.

Charon spoke first.

“Gentlemen, I’m Evelyn Alexander Charon, you can step forward now to talk, I won’t bite.”

The older of the two responded.

“Mister Charon, we require your presence in our office.”

“Nonsense.”  Charon replied.  “Your authority ends at the airlock door, and I won’t step into it.”

The two men were dumbfounded.  They looked at each other in confusion.

Charon spoke again.

“You should step up so we could have a proper conversation. And you can send the goon squad home.  They wouldn’t last ten seconds in action under these conditions.”

In Charon’s opinion the goons wouldn’t last two seconds in combat and they would have left an awful mess, with blood sprayed literally all over the place, in the weightless conditions.

The black suited members of the tactical team were staring at the shipboard security team and their weapons properly emplaced for zero-g combat.

They wanted to go home.  Now.

The lead agent could also see the situation for what it was.  He decided there was nothing to gained by dying.

He spoke.

“Team leader!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Return to base!”

“Yes, sir!”

The tactical team leader raised the muzzle of his weapon away from the Freyans.  The remainder of the team did so as well.  They moved clumsily back to the spin section of the station.

The shipboard security team shifted the aim of their weapons to the two agents.

“Now.”  Said Charon.  “Let’s have a civilized conversation.”

The two agents stepped forward with their grip shoes on the deck.  Charon asked a question.

“Why are you interfering with the operation of this ship?”

The lead agent spoke.

“We have information that four of your passengers are dead, one has been placed under arrest and is in hibernation, and that you’re giving sanctuary to a replacement.”

Charon answered with the full voice of moral authority.

“This vessel is registered under the flag of the Ursa Major Confederation.  Douglas Wolfe committed a capital crime and is under arrest.  His four employees were killed while assaulting myself and four other passengers on this ship.  And Diana is a person, not a piece of property.”

“And does this alleged person have a surname?”

Evelyn quickly answered.

“Charon.”  He said.  “Diana Charon.”

Evelyn shifted his right hand towards Diana.  She placed her left hand in his and stepped towards him.

“Mister Charon, why are you defying the law?”

“What law?”

“You are stealing a replacement from the rightful owner and holding him captive.”

Charon answered. Firmly.

“The true code of law is based on the individual right to live, this isn’t only the right to physically exist but also the right to be in complete control of one’s own life. What you’re doing is simply a complete denial of that right.  What I’m doing is a complete defense of that right.”

Evelyn then voiced a personal opinion.

“And someone who claims ownership of another person is nothing more than a predatory animal, to be identified and dealt with as such.”

Charon then had one more thing to say.

“Does your mother know that you murder slaves?”

The African-American senior agent responded sharply.

“Leave my mother out of this!”  He said.  “And we don’t commit acts of murder!  We retire replacements!”

Charon shook his head.

“Really?  Couldn’t you come up with a better euphemism?  The term ‘retirement’ was lame when Ridley Scott used it in the original version of Blade Runner.”

“Oh, I forgot.”  Said Charon.  “A euphemism requires original thought.”

“Mister Charon?”  Said the senior agent.  “Why are you wasting our time?  Just hand over the replacement and release the owner to us and you can go.”

“And be an accessory to murder?”  Said Charon as he shook his head.  “That’s out of the question.”

The senior agent desperately attempted another tack to obtain his goal.  He spoke to Captain Hausa.

“Sister,” he said, “you can feel that he’s wrong, for the sake of yourself, your ship and the people on it, just comply with the law.”

Captain Hausa shook her head and replied with authority.

“You have no law.”  She said.  “And to comply with your demands would be irrational.”

The junior agent interjected.

“Reason makes you white!”

Captain Hausa replied firmly.

“Is that so?  Reason is what makes us human.”

Diana spoke up.

“I would suggest that you quit before you die of embarrassment, but it appears that you’re incapable of it.”

Evelyn Charon cracked a smile.

“Gentlemen, give up while you still can.”  He said.

The senior agent was exasperated. He’d reached his limit.

“Who are you?  Who are you to speak to us that way?”

“Simply a man.”  He replied.  “I did say my name was Evelyn Alexander Charon.”

The junior agent shouted.

“Which one?  Second , third, or forth?”

Charon responded.

“I was born on November Twenty Second, Nineteen Sixty Three, in Dallas, Texas.  With all the bullets flying around my parents thought it would be a good idea to move to Minnesota.  I enlisted in the United States Army on March Tenth, Nineteen Eighty Two.  I was wounded in a friendly fire incident during Operation Desert Storm along with my company commander, Captain John Andrew March. I worked for him as he served as the Governor of the State of Minnesota, the last President of the United States, and the first President of the Federation.”

Both agents were stunned.

“That’s impossible.”  Said the eldest.  “You can’t be him.  You can’t be the destroyer.  You’re too young.”

“We call it reincarnation by technological means.”  Charon replied.  “And it’s a perfectly legal act on Freya.”

“You’re a replacement!”  Shouted the youngest agent.

Charon looked straight at the youngest agent and replied directly.

“And what are you going to do?”  He said. “Kill me?  Kill Diana?  Even if you could kill us there will be Hell to pay, and my next incarnation will be there to collect.”

Both agents were silent. Charon continued to speak.

“Xenophonian mercenaries murdered three members of my family during the War Of Independence.  We responded by striking the planet Xenophon with ultra high yield cobalt cased thermonuclear weapons.  Nothing lives there now.  Not even mutants hunting each other for food. Your actions aren’t enforcing any law that we could objectively see as being valid.  And there’s no place in the known universe that you’ll find sanctuary.”

Both agents turned pale.

“What are we to do?”  Asked the senior agent.

The answer was simple.

“Do no further harm.”  Said Evelyn.

The Reliable topped off her reaction mass tanks and departed from Nowhere Station with no further interference.

The first moment they had alone Evelyn and Diana talked.

“So we’re married?”  She said.

“Apart from some paperwork being filled out, yes.”

“And why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“You’re a victim of one of the worst crimes that can be committed.  I wanted you to make your own decision on your own.  That idiot forced my hand.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We live.”

Evelyn and Diana kissed.

The transit to the jump point was uneventful.

The next world on the route was Vance.  It was a habitable satellite of a gas giant planet of another red dwarf star.  It was discovered by John Vance, an Australian explorer employed by the Freya Project.  It had a seventy percent gravitational pull and an atmospheric pressure at the surface similar to the city of Denver on Earth.  This world allowed people born in the habitants of Mars to acclimate to higher gravity and an open sky.

And because some of the original Martians had remained on this world it would become a member of Freya Pact during the War Of Independence and later join the Ursa Major Confederation.

With no plans to land on the planetary surface Diana and Cheryl went shopping on the Vance orbital station.  They entered the local branch of Star-Mart in the spin section of Vance Station.

As they were locating items found in the catalog the store manager confronted them.

He pointed to Diana and shouted with a brusque tone of voice.

“YOU!  Get out of here!”

Cheryl intervened.

“Is there a problem?”

“Yes!”  Said the manager loudly.  “We don’t serve replacements here!”

The corporate logo and serial number tattoo on Diana’s forearm was still visible.

Cheryl replied.

“My friend is a person and you’re in the Ursa Major Confederation.”

“Doesn’t matter, bitch!”  The manager replied.  “Corporate policy forbids transactions with escaped replacements.”

“You’re just following orders?”

“Yes!”  The manager replied.  “Now get out of here before I call the cops!”

Cheryl replied with a level voice.

“Go ahead, call the police.”

The first pair of station police officers that arrived said they were under orders to wait for their supervisors.  They rejected the demands by the store manager to eject the two women.

The next to arrive were the manager of the station, the chief of the station police, Captain Hausa, and Evelyn Charon.

As Evelyn took charge of the situation the store manager shouted.

“Who the Hell are you, punk?”

“Evelyn Charon, Chairman of the Board of the Freyaspace Corporation.”

The store manager visually scanned Charon for a moment.

“You’re too young, punk!”  The manager replied in what Charon recognized as an old Chicago accent.

“The Freyaspace Corporation is a owned family business.  An actual family business.  Unlike those back in Chicago.”  Charon responded.  “But that’s not important right now.  What’s the problem we are responding to is that you're in clear violation of the lease agreement the Star-Mart Corporation has with the Freyaspace Corporation.”

“Doesn’t matter!”  The store manager replied.  “My orders come from Earth!  We don’t take shit from colonial punks.”

He pointed to Diana.

“Get that walking piece of shit out of here!  NOW!”

Captain Hausa spoke.

“The next thing he’ll do is deny service to ‘niggers.’”

“Well, we can’t have that.”  Said Charon.

He turned to the station manager and spoke.

“Karl, the contract is revoked, close the store.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You won’t get away with this!”  The store manger shouted.  “You’ll pay for this! You won’t escape punishment from us!”

“Who’s us?”  Said Charon.

The store manager suddenly realized that he wasn’t back in the City of Chicago on Earth.  His political and social connections could no longer protect him.

Charon turned to the chief of the station police.

“Chief?  Did you get everything that moron said?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Chief, would you please demonstrate to this gentleman how we deal with those persons who believe they’re exempt from an objectively valid code of law.”

“Yes, sir.”

The chief of the station police and the other officers present pulled out their batons and proceeded to beat the store manager into a bloody pulp.

“Ladies,” said Evelyn, “we’ll have to shop somewhere else.”

The last jump in the journey was to the system of 10 Ursae Majoris.  The system was a binary. The primary star was classed by astronomers as a F5 dwarf and the secondary as a G5 dwarf like the original Sun.  The system was 52 light years from the Earth.

The configuration of the orbit of each star caused the position the jump points in the system to shift radically over the course of time.  It also allowed the system to have two habitable planets.

Orbiting the smaller and dimmer star of 10 Ursae Majoris B was the planet Freya.  Named for the Norse goddess of wealth and beauty the core group of colonists came from the sealed habitats of Mars.  Survival in the lethal environment of the Red Planet required a hardcore realist view of existence. A world view that couldn’t indulge in fantasies.  While some people found the core culture of the Freyans to be hostile and the travel distance to be extreme there were now a hundred million people living on the planet.

The corporate executive shuttle dropped away from the primary space station.  The destination was the surface port at Landfall.  The capital of the planet and the Ursa Major Confederation.

Their limousine pulled out from the corporate section the down port. It turned north for the hour drive to family estate.

Evelyn and Diana were met at the main entrance of Charon House by a very elderly man with a cane and an eyepatch.

Evelyn made the introduction.

“Diana, this is my first incarnation, Alex.”

Alex graciously took her right hand into his.

“Welcome to the family.”  He said.

“Thank you, sir.”  She replied.

Alex smiled.

“You needn’t say that.”  He said.

He then spoke to Evelyn.

“You left the usual trail of death and destruction?”

“Well, yes.”  Said Evelyn.

“There are some things we need to discuss.”  Alex replied.