CHAPTER 6: Death Traps and a Second Chance at Life
It wasn't the first time I'd come in on the run. But I wished that slamming into the wall didn't throw me into an elevated- adrenaline panic every damn time. When you're running away from certain death, walls are traps... especially walls that come out of nowhere. Even with the nearly instantaneous reversal of the memory wipe, it still took several entire actual seconds to adjust to the old-new reality. Every so often an Agent-Explorer just can't do it. About half never get the chance to try. These are pulled back dead, or they just don't show up at all.
I picked myself up off the padded floor, and shucked my pack and weapons. The memory restoration process was designed to destroy any inimical programming that I might have had done to me during my excursion. Yep, absolutely neutralize it. Sure, you betcha - I was safe as houses... but no one was going to let me come out of that room armed.
I headed for debriefing.
There were no questions. The Wipe had protected the secret of my origin, mission, and my identity from hostile interrogation. There was also a nano-corder implant connected to every sensing center - all five of them. My observations had been recorded there without being distorted by the incredible ability of man to make the unfamiliar, familiar. Tall vegetated spindly things with bushy tops, f'r instance, become "trees," no matter what they really are. What should not have happened, however, was me realizing there was a place called "Earth," and that where I was, wasn't it. We'd be working on that. Debriefing, meanwhile, consisted of a two-hour, high-speed download, with enough electronic gadgetry attached to my skull to nearly obscure my head from view. I took the opportunity to catch up on some sleep
After the debriefing I woke up, and lay there remembering. I always do. Earth is dying. Centuries ago, after Communism had collapsed under its own weight, and the cold war was over, dismantling of the nuclear arsenals world-wide was proceeding apace when the Pacific ring-of-fire started going off. What man never did, nature finally accomplished. L.A. actually finally did pretty much fall into the Pacific. Eruptions and quakes pinched missile silos, and dumped nuclear power plants into lava-hot cravasses. Explosions from these triggered more quakes and eruptions, which in turn kept the cycle running.
An appallingly large number of nuclear missiles actually followed their programming, eliciting the inevitable pre-programmed response from all sides. We had our war (it's just that... nobody really fought in it), made all the more horrible because it ran on autopilot, and there was no stopping it. Still today, centuries later, fewer than half a billion people subsist on this radiation-poisoned planet. And by "on," I mean we live in unimaginably gigantic caverns. Atmospherically sealed, radiation-shielded factories on the surface keep us in goods, and hydroponic gardens feed us. Earth is huge, and her dying will be long, lucky for these survivors, but die she will, and dying she is, at least as far as being a habitation for humans goes.
The FTL (Faster than Light) Transport developed before the war could not carry life. But, necessity being the mother of invention and all that, the war that nearly destroyed humanity also spawned its salvation, or so we hoped. Because of the radiation, humans began producing mutants, some of whom were teleports who could travel up to several miles instantly. It wasn't much, but it started a long and agonizing search through the remaining computer libraries. Eventually, teleportation boosters were developed and built, finally being miniaturized to the point they could be carried within one's body, triggered by neural impulses. The FTLT drones were produced. It took us generations.
For the last century the drones have been going out. When the drones report a breathable atmosphere, the teleports follow. Memories wiped, behavioral triggers implanted, and outfitted for survival in any climate, they jump onto the unknown worlds. I am one of these.
Contact with sentient beings, or life threatening situations, triggers instant recall. The latter had obviously been my fate on this adventure. If we meet no one, are involved in a near-death experience or we survive our designated time, we return involuntarily. Many never do.
Sometimes the report is favorable, and an Unwiped team returns to that planet for two years of intensive exploration. Only then will volunteer colonists be drawn, by lot, and sent by transport through the mass boosters. A few thousand desperate survivors will be allowed to face the incredible hardship and privation of planet pioneering. They will be overjoyed at the prospect. At least that is the theory. So far we have never gotten beyond step three, sending the Unwiped teams, and there had been precious few of those. If the Unwiped team found no unconquerable life-forms, no ubiquitous toxins in atmosphere or soil, no unbearable temperature variations, then...
NOW - after more than a hundred years, three thousand single drone missions, two hundred Teleport jumps (I've made seventeen) and a secret number of failed team attempts on very marginal worlds - this could be the live one. I know it is far more likely a candidate than any other to which an Unwiped team has been sent.
One! A pitifully small return on the investment of the total remaining resources of a dying world, and the unbelievable willingness of its citizens to sacrifice. One good chance to start over.
I sat up on the foamform debriefing cot, and it form-shifted into a chair. I scratched at my growth of beard. It occurred to me that I smelled. I could still taste some of last night's brandy in the back of my throat. I grinned. There was more at home, and soap, and safe water.
Sport? That little bundle of fur was just a mental implant; subvocalizations by Yours Truly. We need a basis for reasonable fears, or we become hostage to unreasonable ones, and we need to be able to verbalize them. The Wipe destroys our references for fear. Nameless fear is debilitating, and talking to yourself will drive you nuts, so we get a friend along with the nano-corder implants. Small furry things are comforting when you're alone. Voila - Sport, the talking gopher. I kind of missed him. But we'd meet again. We always did.
