Divergence

Judy had worked for Social Care. She had taken the drug MTPH to boost her ability to empathize with others. The Free Enterprise, however, had replaced that faculty with something far more cold and clinical. The shifting webs of emotions that she would once have discerned in the three humans now standing before her were gone. Instead, she saw nothing more than the ghostly glow of the mechanism that lived in their heads. She couldn’t read their thoughts; no, what she saw was at a lower level than that. She was observing the mechanism that produced thought.

Judy pushed her despair down deep. So this was her reentry to the world of humanity. It all seemed so much less than she remembered.

The woman who had introduced herself as Saskia was gazing at Judy from under a fringe of purple-black hair. She spoke hesitantly.

“Well, Judy or Jonah or whatever you want to be called, I’m sure we can make you comfortable here. There are plenty of spare rooms on board the Eva Rye …”

“I’m sure there are.” Judy gave a bitter laugh. “I’m sure if you look there will be one made just to my liking, with lacquered furniture and tatami matting and white paper screens for doors.”

The smaller of the two men was checking his console, the pale ghost of his mind moving in patterns as he processed what he saw there. It was all so ordered, so objective. Where was the emotion? Where had it gone?

“She’s right,” he said. “That’s Donny’s old room. It’s decorated just like she said, some sort of Japanese style from the last decade.” He suddenly gave a smile. “I’m Maurice.”

Judy’s mind read the smile, but all the warmth that it transmitted was diluted by the meta-intelligence that she carried in the cross on her back. A smile is just a signal, it was saying, just another way of transmitting information.

She had to speak, so she forced herself to smile back. It was hard.

“I told you,” she said. “Someone is choosing a path for me. His name is Chris. He doesn’t care that I don’t want to go back to Earth.”

Saskia frowned. She looked upset, but all Judy could see was the ghost of her thoughts assigning reactions. Saskia’s voice was tentative, apologetic.

“But we thought you wanted to go to Earth. We were told that the Free Enterprise had a passenger. That’s right, isn’t it, Maurice?”

Maurice nodded, but Judy cut across his answer. “A passenger, maybe, but not a willing one.”

The tall black man who stood in the middle of the group was moved to speak. There was a difference to his mind, Judy noticed: a simplicity and a complexity that tangled over each other to make the movement of his thoughts difficult to follow.

“We don’t have to take her, do we?” he said to Saskia. He turned. “Where do you want to go, Judy?”

“It’s not that easy, Edward,” said Saskia firmly. “We used the FE software to agree to this trade, remember. We can’t go back on it.”

“You wouldn’t be able to anyway,” said Judy, gazing oddly at Edward. She recognized him for what he was, but it was strange. In the past she had felt pity for people like him, now she felt…nothing. It was all just part of the mechanism. Some were bright, and some were not. He was looking at her with a tender expression. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” she added dryly. “Feel sorry for yourselves for being dragged into this without your permission.”

The concern that this statement generated was visible in the crew’s minds. To the meta-intelligence, it was just another process to be measured. Judy continued.

“Now, would it be possible to have something to eat? I haven’t had real food for five weeks. The Free Enterprise wasn’t equipped for humans. It constructed everything from the ground up.” She grimaced at the memory.

“What were you doing on board that ship?” asked Maurice.

Judy shivered at the question.

Saskia must have noticed it. “I think there will be time for Judy’s story later, Maurice,” she said mildly. Any thoughts that Judy might have had that Saskia was sympathetic were quickly dashed when she continued—“For the moment, Judy, I want to know what you mean, saying that we’ve been dragged into this. We operate of our own free will. That’s the point of FE software: haven’t you heard of it?”

Judy inclined her head slightly. “A little, yes. But I’m sorry, Saskia, someone is playing games with you. This ship, the decor—someone is sending me messages.”