INSANITY IS INFECTIOUS

 

One evening, the Emperor visits the crew of the Supreme Lyrhys. The dead Emperor of the long-gone Empire.

But his visits stirs up old feelings and new, especially for Lyth, the former shipmind, who has struggled to find acceptance among the crew….

“Insanity is Infectious” is a standalone short story in the Iron Hammer space opera science fiction series. It first appeared in Space Opera Digest 2022: Have Ship, Will Travel on January 27, 2022.

 

 

I WAS SHOWING MACE PICTURES of my children when the Emperor stopped by to visit us.

Ramaker the Third, Seventy-sixth Carinad Emperor and first of the Tanique Dynasty, had been dead for nearly forty years, but that didn’t seem to be a problem for him. Nor did our far-flung location, for the Supreme Lyrhys was deep inside the borders of the Terran Union and running at full stealth. We were three weeks away from home if we left right now, but we had a great deal of sneaking around and intelligence gathering to do before we could leave.

Tonight, ship’s time, we were taking a rare few hours off, as we’d just dropped the last of this load’s agents onto their target worlds and were down to permanent crew only. I’d commandeered one of the three large easy chairs in the common room in the center of the ship, with half a mind to watch something distracting and completely trivial. Mace, one of the three co-designers of this amazing ship, had settled in another chair to read, with a half-full glass of scotch on the arm.

Eliot Byrne, the current captain of the Lyrhys, was also reading on the far side of the room. He’d printed himself a reclining chair and footstool, and a floor lamp to shed light he didn’t need onto his pad. I don’t think he had moved in hours, except to tap for the next page, his narrow, thin face still, his eyes shadowed by his brows. But Captain Byrne was better than most humans at staying focused.

I tried not to read anything into the wide gap between where he had set up his chair and where I was sitting in the armchair.

The other two human crew members, Elizabeth and Rayhel, were in their staterooms. Sleeping, I presumed, but perhaps not. Their relationship defied easy explanations.

The staterooms edged the common area, which contained a compact gym at the aft end and gave access to the bridge at the fore. The common area was where we worked and ate. Lyric, the shipmind, had turned the lights down to encourage relaxation. I hadn’t had to suggest it to her as I might have only a few months ago. Lyric was a fast learner when it came to human complexities.

I couldn’t find anything I wanted to watch or listen to. Mace wasn’t in the mood for reading, for he had put the pad aside five minutes after sitting and turned to me. “What’s happening in your life, Lyth? The boring stuff. What’s Juliyana up to?”

So we talked, instead. Most of the conversation was as banal and trivial as I had hoped to find on the entertainment feeds. Eventually, Mace asked to see the latest images of my three children—Noah, Eliyana and Jay Daniel—who were safely tucked away in a secure location in the Carinad Federation and would remain there while their mother and I fought in the war against the Terrans. I suppose some might say the conversation continued to be banal and trivial even after he’d asked, but they were my children, and I was a typical father and was more than eager to talk about them.

I’d just flipped to the photos of Jay Daniel, the youngest, when a muffled shriek sounded.

Everyone looked up, and I shifted on the chair to peer at the staterooms on our side of the common area, for that was where the sound had come from.

“That was Elizabeth, wasn’t it?” Mace asked.

The second shriek was quite distinct. I think I jumped a little at the sound of it. Elizabeth Crnčević’s door slid open, and she ran out, cradling her wrist. “Get him away from me!” she shouted at us.

The door of the room beside hers slid open and Rayhel strode out, looking around for Elizabeth. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

Elizabeth came to stand in the angle between Mace’s chair and mine. She was breathing hard. Her fright was alarming, for Elizabeth was one of the steadiest people in a crunch situation that I’d ever met. She was a psycho-scientist and clinical technician, one of the best in the Federation.

“Ramaker!” she said, staring at her door.

“Ramaker…the emperor?” I asked diffidently.

“The dead emperor?” Mace added. His mouth was quite straight. I knew he was trying hard to not laugh at her. “The empire folded forty years ago,” he added helpfully.

“Thirty-seven,” I amended, for I had many reasons for remembering the date.

Elizabeth did not look at either of us. “He was there,” she insisted. “In my room. He tried to speak to me.”

Behind her, I could see that Eliot Byrne had put down his pad and was listening with his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

Rayhel gave Elizabeth a look that, coming from most men, would have been considered patronizing. But Rayhel was a former upper class Terran. His simplest “good morning” sounded snotty. He pointed at her room. “He was in there?”

“Yes,” she said, sounding defensive.

“May I?”

She rolled her eyes at him.

Rayhel gave her one of his I’m-really-laughing-at-you smiles and stepped into the room. The door didn’t challenge him.

A few second passed, then he emerged. “He’s not there now.”

“But he was there!” Elizabeth insisted. “He grabbed my wrist. Look.” She held out the arm she had been nursing.

We all bent to examine her wrist. There were deep red marks on her very pale, clear skin that would correspond with someone squeezing her wrist. They would turn to bruises soon, if she didn’t have the medical concierge look at them.

Rayhel’s expression darkened. “The room was empty.”

“Lyric, report,” Eliot Byrne said from just behind Elizabeth. He’d come over to the little group and seen the forming bruises himself.

Just to one side of the trio of armchairs, a pool of nanobots flowed up from the well beneath the floor and formed a pillar, which took on the details of a slender human woman. The details filled out, then colour emerged, until Lyric stood before us. The whole process only took two or three seconds, but I never tired of watching the nanobots turn into Lyric.

She faced Eliot Byrne. “Captain?”

“Did you program nanobots to represent the old Emperor and have them visit Elizabeth in her room?”

Lyric shook her head. “No, Captain.”

It wasn’t a clear enough question. Byrne wasn’t used to dealing with a fully functional AI. “Lyric,” I said. “Have you run any sub-routines that might cause the nanobots to behave that way?”

Byrne scowled at me. I ignored it and waited for Lyric to check her recent activity logs.

She shook her head. “No, there’s nothing, Lyth. Everything in the log is routine. I didn’t want to disturb anyone.”

Rayhel shrugged. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now.” He sounded bored, but that was a default state for him.

Eliot Byrne rubbed the back of his neck. He was an excellent captain when it came to directing humans, but some of the more esoteric functions of the Lyrhys were beyond his full understanding—for now, at least. We’d only been crewing the ship for a few months, and most of the time we were all too busy to socialize or spend time learning more about this unique ship.

“Mace, what could it be?” Byrne asked the man in the chair next to mine.

Mace got to his feet. “I can’t think of a single thing that might explain it. Clearly, it’s something to do with the nanobots—ghosts don’t leave bruises. But…Ramaker?” he shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. I’d have thought that if the nanobots wanted to go haywire, they would…I don’t know…melt the structures they’ve already built, or something. Making something…that’s very specific.”

“It is a result of an executive command,” Lyric said. “They can’t form anything without coded directions. Something told them to create Ramaker.”

I held my silence while the captain grew increasingly frustrated as he tried to formulate how to respond to the incident. It also struck me as odd that, out of all the objects and people the nanobots might have formed, they’d chosen Ramaker III.

It would be fair to say I hadn’t liked the man. I’d never personally met him, but I’d been part of the crew who’d had their lives ripped apart because of Ramaker’s scheming. I wasn’t glad he was dead, although the Federation that had formed after the passing of him and his Empire was a much cleaner and more pleasant place.

Elizabeth, though, had worked directly with the Emperor, helping him with some of those schemes. She only looked like a young woman—she kept her cosmetic age quite young. Her association with him might have something to do with his appearance on the ship.

Or it could very well be all in her mind, and the bruises were psychosomatic. I couldn’t ignore that she had been mentally fragile, lately. She was finding her way back from a dark valley, using hard work and the war to give her structure. Perhaps she wasn’t recovering as well as we’d assumed.

“We can’t afford to have the ship malfunctioning,” Eliot Byrne said with a tired sigh. “Maybe what you saw was a glitch, Elizabeth, and it won’t happen again. But I don’t think we can ignore it and hope it goes away. Danny needs us too much.”

I noticed that he had carefully not mentioned that Elizabeth may have imagined it. People-smart, as I said.

Danny was General Líadan Andela, the leader of the Federation military force fighting the Terrans, and our supreme commander. I was also an honorary member of her family.

Mace didn’t look happy about the idea of reporting to the General that the ship was out of commission, either.

Byrne turned to me. “Colonel Andela, I want you to investigate. Get to the bottom of this, so we can all get some sleep. It’s late.”

I felt my jaw sag and caught it up. “I…um…yes, captain,” I said. In fact, Eliot Byrne and I both had the same rank, but he was my commanding officer while I was on the Lyrhys. Of the human crew on the ship, I was probably the most qualified to check into this, for a number of reasons including my ability with coding. But that wasn’t why the captain had tapped me for it. The “Colonel Andela” told me why.

But he was my CO, and I had to obey, no matter what bigotry had driven his decision.

I picked up my pad. I’d put it back in my room, then head to the bridge and cross-examine Lyric. She could analyze her sub-routines and the mega-library of data stored in her clean room, in a sterile corner of the engineering section at the back of the ship. She’d be faster at it than me.

Rayhel took Elizabeth’s arm and led her toward the medical suite.

I stepped into my room and the door closed softly behind me.

My pad hung from my fingers, forgotten, for Ramaker stood at the foot of my bed.

I stared at him, my gut tightening. Ramaker reached out with his hand, as if he wanted to pluck at my sleeve and I backed up a step. My back slapped the closed door.

Ramaker came toward me. His mouth moved as if he was speaking, but he said nothing.

“Open the door,” I croaked.

The door scraped along my shoulder blades. I backed out and let it close on the apparition, while my heart thundered and my breath shallowed. I spun on my heel.

Lyric had already left.

Eliot Byrne stood with Mace. Both of them were talking quietly. Byrne laughed softly in a way he’d never done in my company.

“Perhaps insanity is infectious.” My voice was strained.

They both looked up. Mace smiled, but Byrne simply looked annoyed.

I pointed my thumb over my shoulder. “I just saw Ramaker, too.”

Mace’s smile faded.

Eliot Byrne cursed softly. He said to Mace, “Go and get some sleep. I’ll take care of this.”

Mace hesitated. The Lyrhys was his ship. But he’d turned her over to the military for the duration of the war and now he was merely a crew member. I saw him remind himself of that, then nod. “Good night, Eliot. Lyth.” He turned and trudged to the other end of the common area, where his room was located.

Byrne came over to me. “Show me.” His impatience tinged both words.

I turned toward the door of my room. “Now I’m wondering if I only imagined him, too.”

Byrne glanced at me. “You?”

I kept my eyes on the door. I wasn’t quite ready to take the step that would trigger it to open. “I used to have nightmares about Ramaker, once.”

“You have nightmares?”

I reined in my impatience. “I am a former shipmind, Captain. I am now fully human.”

Byrne shook his head. “You gonna open the door, or what?”

I took a breath and stepped forward. Byrne kept pace.

The door slid open.

We stood where we were. There was no need to move inside the room, for I could see Ramaker from right here. The nanobot built avatar raised its hands toward us as if it was pleading.

“Captain?” My voice was a near-squeak.

Byrne didn’t look at me. “If you’re insane, then I guess I am too. That’s the bastard, all right.”

I felt the jolt down to my toes and looked at Byrne. “You didn’t like him either?”

Byrne took a step back. “You telling me you didn’t? Weren’t you a computer then?”

I stepped back, too. I watched the door close with a touch of relief. “I was sentient when my crew were nearly destroyed because of what he did,” I ground out. “And it stayed with me for years after I moved into a clone.”

“Nightmares, then,” Byrne summed up.

The door to my room opened, triggered by something or someone drawing close to it.

Byrne and I both leapt backward the same distance.

“Lyric!” Byrne shouted. His voice was hoarse.

Lyric rose up from the floor instead of forming herself on the bridge and walking into the common area, as a human would do.

The reason I liked watching her form herself was because I had once done the same thing. Watching her told me what humans had felt when they had seen me do it.

Byrne snapped out his arm, pointing toward the open door of my room.

Lyric turned to look, just as Ramaker stepped through the door and moved in slow steps out into the common area. He looked around, as if he really was there and examining this new place he found himself in. The common room was a step down from the luxury of the Imperial Palace that had once existed in the Crystal City.

I shook myself. “This isn’t Ramaker. It can’t be.” But my voice wasn’t as steady as I wanted it to be.

Byrne turned to Lyric. “Tell me you see him?” He was almost pleading.

Lyric nodded. “I see the avatar. But I cannot explain why it is here.”

“Track the nanobots,” I urged her. “Find where they’re getting their directions from.”

“Do what he says.” Byrne’s tone was urgent.

We were all backing up, now, as Ramaker came toward us.

“I can’t find anything!” Lyric’s voice was as strained as Byrne’s. I knew it wasn’t because of Ramaker. To not understand with perfect clarity why something was functioning the way it was on a ship that was essentially her was disconcerting her. I’d had it happen to me when the array had blasted into my systems and taken control.

Most of my nightmares from my earliest years as a human had involved watching those I loved die while I was helpless to do anything but watch, my hands and body useless, my voice mute. A psycho-scientist like Elizabeth had explained that the helplessness was a hangover from being a shipmind and sentient, with no hands of my own.

These days, when sentient AIs trade their neural networks for human clones on a regular basis, the psychology generated by the transition is better understood. But I was the first to make the transition and survive…but it had come at a cost.

Ramaker was still pacing toward us, still speaking silently, his hands out as if he was pleading, while the three of us shifted away from him. Even Byrne was breathing hard.

The sour spill of chemicals in my gut and the sick sensation they were producing was too close to my nightmares for comfort. I thought I’d moved beyond them. This was an unpleasant reminder of those early days.

“That’s it,” I said shortly, coming to a halt. “This ends now.” I moved forward, instead of back and balled my fist. The anger came up from my toes. All the misery I’d watched this man heap upon my friends. The agony, the heartache. We’d watched friends die because of him. We’d watched everyone in the entire Empire struggle to survive.

“Why can’t you just leave…us…alone!” I cried, and punched him on his royal jaw.

The avatar rocked on its heels, but didn’t disperse the way nanobots are supposed to.

Instead, I staggered backwards, my hand on fire, my knuckles screaming.

“What the hell?” Mace came running up beside me and grabbed my wrist. “You punched it?”

“You can see it, too?”

“Of course I can bloody well see it.” Mace examined my hand. “You broke something, for sure. That thing is construction nanobots—did you forget that this ship uses them exclusively?”

I swallowed. The pain was flaring up my arm, making it hard to think. “I…yes, I forgot.”

Mace tsk’d and looked at Lyric. “Shut down everything but survival sub-systems and constructs you’ve put in place yourself, Lyric.”

“A non-essential reboot?’

“Yes.”

She nodded and melted away.

Byrne gripped my arm. “C’mon. Over here. Out of the way of his highness there. Come.” He pulled me well out of the way of the construct, as it turned and silently spoke to us.

Suddenly, the ship plunged into darkness.

I heard a surprised shout from the medical suite, where Elizabeth and Rayhel were.

Low, blue-toned lights sprang up around the edges of the room, showing the silhouettes of objects we could trip over, and little more.

Ramaker was gone.

I would have been relieved, but I was in too much pain. I think I groaned.

Captain Byrne laughed, a low chuckle. “Take him and get the bones reknitted, Mace,” he said. “Then figure out what the hell tripped off that thing we just saw.”

“Aye, Captain,” Mace said.

Byrne clapped me on the shoulder. “You’re done for the night, Andela. Mace will take over from here.”

I looked Byrne in the eye. “Should have been Mace in the first place. This ship isn’t me.”

Byrne stared steadily back. Then he shifted on his feet. “Give the man something that’ll keep the nightmares away and let him sleep,” he told Mace and moved away.

•

ELIOT BYRNE SLID ONTO THE long bench I was using to eat my breakfast—not that I had much appetite this morning. Instead, I was drinking my third cup of coffee and trying to dispel the fog of whatever the medical concierge had directed Mace to give me, last night.

I had slept without nightmares, but now waking up was an issue.

“How’s the hand?” Byrne put his breakfast plate in front of him. Sausages and pancakes, lots of syrup.

Well, it was his colon.

“The hand is fine, now.” I held up my right hand and turned it for him to see that even the broken skin over the knuckles had already healed. “Did Mace figure out what happened?”

“He just finished bringing me up to date on that,” Byrne replied. He sawed off half a sausage and chewed vigorously. Then, “If I’ve got this straight, the nanobots on this ship aren’t like the ones that were on you.” He paused. “On the Supreme Lythion,” he corrected himself.

“They’re construction nanobots,” I said, for Mace had reminded me of that last night. I could feel my cheeks heating again.

“They’re more than that. They have processing power of their own, something yours didn’t have.” Byrne looked cheerful, as he folded a whole pancake and slid it into his mouth.

I waited, but I was already starting to see where he was going with this.

After he had swallowed the enormous mouthful, he said, “The processing capacity is so they can work together. Basic intelligence, Mace says. Lets them react to unexpected events in a more natural way, especially if they get cut off from Lyric.”

“It’s the next step in advancing the technology,” I agreed stiffly.

“Since we started coming out here to the middle of Terran nowhere, we’ve been storing memory backups on this ship, instead of some bunker close by the core of a dirtball in the heart of the Federation,” Byrne said. “Some of those memories crossed over to the nanobot routines—that’s the hole Mace found a couple of hours ago.”

I let out a heavy breath. “My memories. My nightmares…”

Byrne pointed his fork at me. It was his way of agreeing while he chewed. Then he swallowed. “Probably some of Elizabeth’s, too—she knew the fellow. Probably why he first showed up for her.”

I nodded.

Byrne chuckled and sawed at the next sausage. “You, Andela, lost your temper last night.”

I gripped my coffee mug. “It won’t happen again.”

Byrne shook his head. “Yeah, it will. Surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. We’re all trussed up in this ship, surrounded by enemies who will eviscerate us if they find us here… You’re such a cool customer, I didn’t think you could lose your temper.” He sopped up syrup with the sausage. “My mistake.” And he chuckled again.

Mace settled on the other side of the long table, his customary oatmeal in front of him. He nodded at me.

Byrne shoved me in the side with his elbow. Gently. “Heard you showing Mace photos of your kids, last night.”

“Yes,” I said cautiously.

He beckoned with his fingers. “Hand ‘em over. Lemme see ‘em.”

The last of my caution fled. I got out my pad and found the photos as commanded, because I’m a father of three brilliant, beautiful children and I’m proud of them.