A Cause for One, Page 3

sunlight. Recalling what the enforcer had said to Marjorie, Jaime couldn't believe that the whole place was now held hostage. It almost made what he was about to do seem 'small.'

  The lift clunked as it connected to a docking port and Jaime marvelled at the view of the Managerial Headquarter Craft. Lavish vastness, its smooth lines glinted like a dolphin summersaulting from a pure-watered sea.

  Then the lift doors hissed open and shattered the tranquilly. Anxiety struck through Marjorie's veins. Jamie felt unprepared and weak. The galaxy will be watching, in one way or another.

  Eerie how quiet and still it was up here, beyond security checks, beyond suspicion. Jamie stepped from the pod and walked along an ever broadening corridor which eventually opened out into a grand chamber. Dark wooden floorboards spread to a dark wooden desk. Behind the desk sat an old man, peering from behind wire glasses and the white fuzz of a beard. Chandeliers hung to light the place, the walls windowless and covered with portraits of the self-same man. Obscene self-aggrandizement.

  The old man pushed his glasses up his nose, straightened his bird-like neck. "Ah, what have we here? A rather striking woman." Clapping his hands in a mock eureka, the man squealed "Why, it must be Marjorie. I have heard so much about you. Shall we talk of worker's rights?"

  "You're the Great Sir?" Squeezing the bio weapon behind his back, Jaime waited for confirmation and the chance to end it all.

  "More than that, I fear. Worlds pray and I answer their prayers. Some chant and build effigies through which I give signs. Some look for binary logic in networks, through which I push my will. And then some worlds, like yours, desire meetings. Rather drab."

  He's toying with me. "So, you are the Great Sir? The one who traps us, starves us, and murders us. That's you? Answer me!"

  "If you want to put it like that, yes. I would say the one who births you, protects you, and feeds you."

  In the back of Jaime's conscious Marjorie urged him to drop the weapon. Tussles of neurons bombarded each other with thought, dialled up the pressure until Marjorie's head felt like it would pop open.

  The Great Sir continued. "Far easier to organise things with castes, yes? With a little fluidity for the talented and educationally gifted." Almost imperceptibly his lips turned a smile. He seemed to look past Marjorie's eye, deep into her mind, directly at Jaime. "You know, Marjorie, the workers are not your children. A union cannot take the place of a dry womb." The old man's smile grew.

  Taking Jaime completely by surprise, Marjorie lashed out like an electric shock and swung the cell-mass from behind her back, her fingers poised to squeeze the trigger-nerves. Yet the old man did not flinch.

  "Do you think you are the first to try? Everyone tries. My visits, well, they give a chance for rebels to let off steam. But none ever succeed." Leaning forward, grey eyes piercing, he continued, "I know who you really are. You look ridiculous in that skin, young man. I was looking forward to meeting Marjorie. This has quite annoyed me."

  "What do you mean?" said Jaime, heart pounding.

  The Great Sir leaned back, puffed out a noisy sigh. "Let me do my part in stopping this farce. I'll show you my truth, boy."

  Like fresh wind blowing through smog, the wood-decked room washed away. Everything glared white, interspersed with visions of the void as a windowed panorama took form along the walls. Antiseptic stink hit like a wall. The beeps and breaths of medical monitors and pumps whispered rhythm.

  In the middle of it all was a husk, grey-skinned and desiccated, wrapped in a cocoon of tubes and stuck with needles. Jaime could only stare, the weapon trembling in Marjorie's hand.

  The Great Sir spoke, his voice little more than air through dry lips. "This is my truth. I am the human centre of things. While machines deal with the minutiae I make the big decision. Elsewise we would be randomness and chaos in space. Or cold logic with no heart. My reward? To be plotted against by those from little worlds with little ideals. Today my plotter is you. Do you know why you won't succeed?"

  Like snakes the tubes slowly uncoiled from around the husk of a man. Needles ejected from withered arms and legs, spurting trails of concoctions into the air. Jaime's voice caught in his throat.

  "Nobody kills me because I offer a choice," said the Great Sir.

  The half-rotted figure pushed itself up, every breath grating like a death rattle. The stench of decay and must cut through the antiseptic.

  "Here, solve the riddle of Seven Systems, noble assassin. Better not dither. I left a rather pertinent dilemma at the outset of your 'shift.'"

  "What?" The weapon lowered.

  "Quick, sit down. You must act now or else innocents will die."

  Hesitantly, Jaime prowled the chair, looked it over and traced the wires and transmitters which laced up into the ceiling and beyond.

  "Murderer," the old man hissed, causing Jaime to jump and Marjorie's skin to crawl. "If you don't sit down you'll be a murderer. People are dying. Sit the hell down."

  Under the control of Jaime, Marjorie did indeed sit. Jaime felt the sensation of the armrests, a pricking of sudden needles, a lashing and then binding of the tubes.

  Chemicals and bio-ware roared through Marjorie's body, connecting up to relays both biological and technological, spreading in ever increasing circles throughout the solar system, every nanosecond bringing more of the void under control.

  Again the room changed, a wall of information tumbled from the ether. Worlds collided, billions demanded. Yet one thought was poignant above it all, something left to decide hanging like a thread which needed to knot. An itch calling for a scratch.

  Jaime's sensations came to rest around this very world's rocky moon. He rushed in closer, somehow able see whatever he wanted. A perimeter of small craft painted with gaudy anti-caste slogans blocked what appeared to be the moon's landing zone. Text messages and broadcasts flooded from the moon's communication dishes, exclamation points galore of hostages and explosives. Bombs ticked above pit mines fizzing with dangerous gasses. The civilian population needed help and fast…

  But what's this? Something else in the void, another dilemma not too far from the Managerial Headquarter Craft. A shuttle drifting without power. Broadcasts through the craft's hacked channels chattered of yet another rebel group, a hijacking to get the Great Sir's attention.

  Why hijack such small-fry? Concentrating, becoming every joule of energy, every byte of information, Jaime swam within a time and space rendered meaningless. Through optics and wireless signals his awareness sunk into the vicinity of the space inhabited by the shuttle.

  The rebels here are protesting against 'caste traitors.' Those choosing to leave the world for a 'better life.' A pang of worry. Roz? A barrage of faces flashed through Jaime's consciousness. Roz was indeed there, strapped into her seat along with the rows of other passengers. A small group of men and women walked back and forth holding grenades.

  Jaime could see the stress crinkles on Roz's face. Dark and beautiful, with those impish twists at the corners of her eyes which always make her look like a mischievous plotter. But she's just one among many…

  Back on the Managerial Headquarter Craft a breath hissed into Marjorie's ear. The white room shifted back into awareness.

  The Great Sir stroked his bone and sinew hand across Marjorie's cheek, his skin almost reptilian to the touch. "Alas, there is only one enforcer craft on patrol, roughly equidistant between the two crises. Fitted with cloaks and network-offensive software, the enforcers could be in and out with small risk of collateral damage. Hmm, but they can only be in one place at one time. A whole moon colony with hundreds of thousands of people besieged by fanatics, or a shuttle with fifty passengers and crew. What to do? Isn’t it obvious?"

  What to do? The many matter more than the one.

  The machines connecting Jaime to god-hood amplified him back out into the void. His consciousness scanned for the enforcer craft. Sure enough it hovered in space, just above the Managerial Headquarters Craft, awaiting a destination.

  Se
eping into the security craft, surging into the on-board computers and enforcer headsets, Jaime transmitted orders and a destination. The ship, all black stealth curves, winked into cloaked silence. A low hum through meaningless space, through meaningless time, and all the while others voices further afield demanded wages, houses, food and justice. A drowning sky of want and need, a curse to hear every grief imaginable. Everything seemed…pointless.

  Again the whisper in Marjorie's ear, "Every one of my would-be assassins is given the opportunity to take my place. Now you have my burden, the burden of responsibility that twists your body and soul. You will long for death but know that you cannot abandon your post. Damn our hearts so full of ideals and causes."

  A moment later and Jaime was a ghost aboard the hijacked shuttle. When enforcers burst through the shuttlecraft's loading bay the rebels immediately waved white flags, their grenades duds just for show. Yet, for an instant, Jaime lived as the twitch of a finger on the trigger of an enforcer's gun. But Roz is safe. And the other passengers too. No one needs to die.

  But what of the moon and the thousands of hostages? The bombs, maybe they are duds too? Immediately Jaime crackled through the enforcer's headsets calling them back to their craft to set a new destination.

  Even though Jaime found time meaningless it wasn't so for the enforcers. Barely a few kilometres away and Jaime's sensations