Altered Starscape by Ian Douglas

Author:Ian Douglas [Douglas, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Goodreads: 25489907
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Published: 2015-12-29T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

“How is he?”

St. Clair was physically present on Ward 2 of Ad Astra’s sick bay, an enormous medical facility more hospital than military clinic. It was, under the circumstances, the least he could do.

Doctor Kildare117 AI Delta-2pmd looked at St. Clair with what was probably intended to be compassion—a programmed response. The expression came across as disingenuous, however . . . something done purely for show. Kildare was a medical robot in Sokolov’s department; the “pmd” in his designator stood for “psychiatric medical doctor.” It was all a fancy way of saying he was a shrink.

“We are keeping Private Patterson in a deep medical coma, Lord Commander. He is psychotic and incapable of normal interaction.”

They were standing on either side of Patterson’s support pod, a mummy-case affair with a transparent top. Ad Astra’s sick bay was located in its own carousel aft of the bridge; some medical processes—the healing of broken bones, for instance—required a gravity field, though the burns unit and some other specialized sections were located in microgravity. Patterson was still, his eyes closed.

“And how the hell did that happen?”

“Unknown,” Kildare replied. “However, probes of Patterson’s brain show that the electrical circuitry of his chelated implants has been burned out, possibly by an extremely powerful and narrowly focused EMP.”

St. Clair frowned. EMPs—electromagnetic pulses—could play havoc with electronic and electrical systems. Most such systems nowadays were insulated or hardened against them, including the delicate traceries of wiring and molecular switches grown inside the brains of most humans. Simply put, a very powerful magnetic field moving past a wire induced an electrical current; if that current was strong enough, the circuit would overload, even short-circuit and melt. The problem was, human implants were well shielded to avoid such nasty side effects when a person happened to walk through a magnet field, so this shouldn’t have been able to happen.

“How is that even possible?”

“Unknown. What happened to CAS Francesca suggests an extradimensional component, however. The two cases are almost certainly related.”

“We’d assumed as much.” He looked down at Patterson’s sleeping face. “Can you get any information out of him? Anything coherent?”

“Not that I, Dr. Sokolov, or the medical-unit AIs have been able to recognize. Here . . . see for yourself.”

Dr. Kildare didn’t move, but a pattern of lights winked on beside Patterson’s head. A minute passed . . . then another. “Dr. Kildare,” St. Clair said. “This really isn’t—”

And then Patterson woke up.

His eyes came wide open, staring up into the overhead lights, and his mouth opened in a shrill scream only slightly muffled by the transplas shield over his face. The muscles of his neck stood out like rigid cables.

“Man grabbed pet but just darkness darkness darkness my God throw run home before five engaged mass surefire general order of a sentry in the dark it watches—”

The pattern of lights changed, Patterson’s face froze in mid shriek, then relaxed, slowly, back to a resting state. His eyes closed, and he was asleep once more.

“My God, Doctor . . . you didn’t need to do that!”

“I wanted you to hear him, Lord Commander.

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