CHAPTER NINE
The sergeant took Freeman and me to a small office. Before we could enter that office, however, we needed to pass through “the posts.”
The posts were a high-tech security device connected to a galaxywide security database. Well, it should have been a galaxywide database. With the Broadcast Network down, the database would only be Earth-wide. But even limited to a planetwide network, the posts would have no trouble identifying us.
The posts looked like plasticized pillars creating an archway. “The sprayer,” the jamb to the left, emitted a short blast of oil, water, and air in the form of a fine mist. The jamb on the right, “the receiver,” vacuumed in that mist along with any dandruff, hair, flecks of skin, and other debris that the blast dislodged. Computers inside the receiver analyzed the DNA inside the hairs and other debris and spit out the person’s identity.
You could not fool the posts. You could wash your clothes, shave your head, and scrub every inch of your body with pumice, and it would make no difference. You could pour buckets of dandruff from one or one thousand other people over your head, and the posts would sort it out. The sprayer would always find some eyelash or scale of skin that belonged to you. The receiver would analyze every molecule and identify the ones that were yours.
According to my Marine Corps record, I had been killed in action. In truth, I swapped identities with a dead Marine, making me absent without leave.
Like any other criminal on the lam, I dreaded passing between the posts.
Freeman and I passed through the security check and entered a small office in which the only furniture was a desk and chairs. The sergeant followed us in and sat on the desk. I selected a chair. Freeman preferred to stand near the door and stare out at the other soldiers who stood guard just beyond the posts.
Bringing us into this waiting room may have seemed like a wasted effort, but I knew why we came. Somebody wanted to identify us. Once they knew our names and read our files, they would send us along.
There were no lights in the office. The only light came from the hall. We waited for nearly an hour in that dark room, then the sergeant received a message on his radio. We might have been cleared; but for all I knew, he might have been told to place me in the nearest brig.
“Time to deliver you both,” the sergeant said, and he led us out to the hall. He and his men marched us into a much larger room. It was an auditorium with a well-shaped gallery that could easily hold two hundred people. The sergeant had Freeman and me sit on two chairs placed on the stage at the bottom of the room. Beside our chairs was a podium with a carving of an eagle carrying arrows. The eagle was the emblem of the Linear Committee— the executive branch of the U.A. government.
Freeman and I sat silently as men and women entered the auditorium and filled the gallery. I recognized most of these people, and many of them seemed to recognize me. The group included high-ranking officers such as Admiral Alden Brocius of the Central Cygnus Fleet and General Alexander Smith of the Air Force, who had been head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the Separatists attacked Earth. Both of them had been closely allied with the late Admiral Bryce Klyber, the officer who’d had me created and overseen much of my career. In all, approximately fifty people came in to observe or interrogate Freeman and me.
“They don’t know what to do with us,” Freeman said in that low, rumbling voice. He did not whisper, but his voice was so low and filled with bass that I felt what he had to say more than heard it.
“If they thought we were Mogat, they don’t anymore,” I said, trying to decide what information those posts might have given about us.
William Grace, a member of the Linear Committee at the outset of the war, approached the stage. He stopped to examine Freeman and me, then stepped behind the podium.
“Men and women of the security council, good afternoon,” Grace said. “For the record, on this, the third day of October, 2512, we are convening an emergency meeting of the Unified Authority Security Council.
“Will the visitors please rise.”
Freeman and I got to our feet.
“Please identify yourselves,” Grace asked.
“Raymond Freeman,” Freeman said.
Grace looked down into his podium. I supposed he had a computer readout built into it. He took a moment to examine Freeman’s record. Then he looked back at Freeman and considered him for several seconds. I had the feeling he was studying the bandages on Freeman’s face and neck. “Are you injured, Mr. Freeman?”
“We had an accident,” Freeman said.
“Do you require medical assistance?”
“No,” Freeman said, his voice low and distant.
“I see that you are a freelance contractor who has worked with the U.A. military on several occasions. Is this correct?” Grace had to have read that from an official dossier.
Freeman nodded.
“According to this record, you have provided valuable services to the U.A. Navy in the past.”
Freeman said nothing. What was there to say? Grace moved on to me.
“And you?” Grace asked. “Please identify yourself.”
“Colonel Wayson Harris,” I said.
By the reaction my name elicited, you would have thought that I had identified myself as George Washington. Individual conversations flared up around the gallery. A few people shouted questions down at me. William Grace picked up a gavel and banged it on the top of his podium until the room quieted down.
“Colonel Harris,” Grace echoed my name back to me. He stared into his chest-high podium. “My records show that you were raised in Unified Authority Orphanage #553. Is this correct?”
“U.A.O. #553. That is correct, sir,” I said.
“According to one of your former commanding officers, you are aware of your nature,” Grace stated.
“If you are asking whether or not I know that I am a military clone, I
“And you are a Liberator-class clone. Is that correct? You are, as far as you know, the last of your kind?”
Grace knew I was a Liberator. Hell, they’d once announced it on the floor of the House of Representatives. Once he established that I was a Liberator, he could probably have me hauled away and executed. I had the feeling of being played like a toy. At any moment, the smile would disappear, and he would bare teeth as sharp as daggers.
“Yes, sir,” I said, a sinking feeling beginning in my stomach. Had Grace already been a senator when Congress banned Liberator clones from Earth and the entire Orion Arm? He looked old enough.
“Are you the same Wayson Harris who survived the battle on Little Man?” Grace asked. “Are you one of the Little Man Seven?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“And you testified about that battle before the House of Representatives?” More and more this was sounding like a military tribunal.
“Yes, sir,” I said. The rapidity of Grace’s questions left me nervous.
“You were reported as killed in action at Ravenwood Outpost,” Grace stated.
“That is correct, sir,” I said.
“But you were not killed there?” Grace asked.
“According to your military record, you were promoted to the rank of colonel in the Unified Authority Marines by Admiral Che Huang. Is that correct?”
“That is correct, sir,” I said. A massive headache brewed in the back of my skull.
The entire room broke out in loud applause. I turned toward the gallery and saw that every man and woman had risen to their feet. The only person remaining in his seat was Freeman. He managed to camouflage his confusion much better than I did. He sat looking straight ahead toward William Grace, his hands by his side.
“Welcome home, Colonel Harris. It is a distinct pleasure to welcome back a war hero like your.”
“I’m afraid I am confused, sir,” I said. He could not hear me over the applause, so I waited a moment for the gallery to quiet down then repeated myself. “I don’t understand, sir.”
“Not expecting a hero’s welcome?” Grace asked.
