A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence) Read online

  A TASTE OF DESPAIR

  by

  Robert E. Taylor

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  KINDLE EDITION

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  PUBLISHED BY:

  Robert Taylor

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  Copyright © 2011 Robert Taylor

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  All rights reserved.

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  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities are entirely coincidental.

  Author’s note

  Writing a sequel to a book that you originally wrote twenty years previously is a surprisingly hard thing to do. Although I made notes originally about the future direction of the story, they were just notes, designed at the time to remind me of scenes I had envisaged and ideas I had concerning the characters. Twenty years later, a lot of those notes made little or no sense. The concepts and ideas they were designed to remind me of had long since fled my brain in order to make room for other, more important, matters.

  When I finally got around to reworking A Breath of Hope and publishing that, even some of the things within that tale made me frown. Some of the hooks and character ideas had vanished into the mists of time as far as my memories were concerned.

  In working on the sequel, twenty years on, I decided it was in my best interest to ignore a lot of the original notes and simply take the original story and extrapolate from there, without paying more than lip-service to my original, sometimes puzzling, notes.

  So here you have it! The sequel, A Taste of Despair. The writing of it was a struggle but it is done at last. My initial idea was to wrap up the story in this book but, as usual, my concept of what will fit into a standard-sized novel and what I actually do manage to shoehorn in are two very different things. So there will be another book after this one. At least that one I won’t have to scratch my head over decades’ old notes to get started!

  I have tried to keep the writing simple, in keeping with the idea for the original, which is to say, an easy read such as I remember from my childhood in the seventies. My hope, as always, is that people find it enjoyable and entertaining.

  I hope you get some enjoyment out of this novel and please, please leave me some feedback about it. Positive or negative. I can’t get better at this if I don’t know where I’m going wrong.

  Enjoy.

  Robert Taylor, December 2011

  PROLOGUE

  The door banged open and Joel Amyson strode in, managing to look self-important even though he was not at all vital to the project.

  “Oh God! Here he comes!” Hal Manning commented.

  His coworker on the late shift, Dane O’Connell, rolled his eyes. “Just what we needed. I told you not to call him!”

  “It’s protocol! I had to.”

  Amyson strode over to the pair at the monitoring station.

  “So. What have we got? When did it start?” His tone suggested he was in charge, but both the other men knew he survived at the project mostly because of his family connections.

  Hal and Dane exchanged glances. Both men were in their thirties, accomplished professionals. To have the likes of Amyson ordering them around had always grated on their nerves.

  “It started about ten minutes ago.” Hal told him. “A massive data stream from out of nowhere, aimed specifically at the Tachyon array.”

  Amyson frowned. “Aimed specifically here? Not a general broadcast?”

  “Nope.” Dane replied. “It’s about as narrow a beam as you can get, considering the source.”

  “The source? Where is it coming from?”

  “Here.” Hal pulled up an image on his display. A flashing point indicated the transmission’s source.

  “Where is that?” Amyson demanded. “Who, or what is sending it?”

  Hal and Dane exchanged glances again.

  “We think it’s from Mr. Vogerian.” Hal said.

  Amyson looked surprised. “The project’s founder? How? I don’t understand. Explain that, please.”

  Hal sighed. “When Mr. Vogerian funded the Tachyon Listening Post Project, he set one stipulation. That we incorporate into the hardware a specific set of recognition codes that would allow him, or his agents, to transmit to the array if needs be.”

  “Why would he do that?” Amyson asked, then. “Why wasn’t I told about this?”

  Because you are a nobody. Hal thought.

  “Everyone assumed it was a standard backdoor access deal.” Dane answered. “The sort of thing that would let him access the servers if he felt we were shafting him, or misusing his investment. It’s fairly common practice these days.”

  “You weren’t told because you didn’t need to know about it.” Hal stated.

  Amyson bridled. “As one of the project coordinators I should be informed about everything concerned with project!”

  Like you’d understand any of it. Hal thought. But he said. “We understand you have many more important things to concern yourself with than some old access code that was never likely to be used.”

  Amyson looked slightly less irritated. “Be that as it may, I should still be kept informed on matters that could lead to improper use of the project.”

  “Which is why you’re here, now, isn’t it?” Hal told him bluntly.

  Amyson scowled at Hal. “So what is this transmission. Is it from Mr. Vogerian? Or just someone using his code?”

  “We have no idea. The source is far off, beyond the rim and then some. Maybe Mr. Vogerian sent an expedition out there. He was into exploration, as I recall.” Dane replied.

  “But what is he sending? Any ideas?”

  Hal shrugged. “The files are locked until transmission is complete. At least, that’s as much as we have been able to glean so far.”

  “Files? The transmission is separate files?”

  Dane nodded. “Yep. Like packets of information. Over a hundred now. Each file is huge, almost a petabyte in size. And they are encrypted in some way, so the final file size may be even larger.”

  “Do we have the capacity to store that much information?”

  Hal sighed. “For now. But it depends how long this transmission continues for. If it goes on for another twenty minutes or so, we’ll have maxed out the server capacity we have.”

  “What about the data we’ve already collected from the array? Is that secure?”

  Dane nodded. “The data regularly gets backed up to a remote site. We won’t lose that.”

  Hal could see Amyson’s discomfort. “What do you think we should do?”

  Amyson opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and closed his mouth again.

  He has no idea. Hal noted. No idea at all.

  Amyson’s discomfort was saved by an attention-seeking bleat from Hal’s display. All the men turned to look at it.

  “It’s stopped.” Dane observed. “The signal’s stopped.”

  “See if you can open one of the files.” Amyson suggested.

  Hal nodded, for once not irritated by Amyson. After working his terminal for a few moments he looked back at the others.

  “It looks like one of the files is unencrypting itself. It’s expanding out, nearly two petabytes now. But for some reason I can’t get a look at the file itself. It’s sealed itself off somehow, created a secure memory sector.”

  “Could it be some sort of viral attack?”

  Dane frowned. “Possibly.”

  A set of beeps now came seemingly from Amyson himself. Hal and Dane turned to look at him suspiciously.

  “My comms unit.” He explained, pulling
out a small, personal communicator. It was a standard, project-issued unit, as given to each employee working at the array. He glanced at the screen.

  “It’s from the Project Director,” He told them. “He wishes to speak to me privately in the secure comms booth.”

  Both men looked surprised. The Director hadn’t been seen or heard from in weeks.

  “It can’t be a coincidence.” Dane noted. “For the Director to call now, at this moment. Maybe he knows something about the transmission?”

  Amyson nodded. “You two carry on. I’ll be back shortly.”

  Hal and Dane watched as he left the room, heading to the secure comms booth. That particular place was a matter of speculation for most of the employees of the project. Only those of Coordinator grade or higher had been issued with passes to use the room. For the rest of the staff, it was off limits.

  “What an asshole!” Hal observed as the door closed behind Amyson.

  Dane nodded in agreement, then turned back to the display. The self-extracting file had finished extracting and now just sat there, in its own little private memory island. The other files remained locked and encrypted. There were nearly two hundred of them.

  “Look at that.” Dane noted. “The last file to transmit didn’t finish. It got cut off half-way through.”

  The two men looked at one another. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Hal asked.

  “Way ahead of you.” Dane replied, punching keys rapidly.

  “Well?” Hal inquired.

  “The analysis takes time.” Dane reminded him. “But we can at least get a look at it. The partial file’s encryption wasn’t complete. We’ll get some idea of what information is within. Just let it run.”

  The two men waited for a minute, then two. At last, the console beeped its readiness and began to display its findings.

  The two men stared in rapt fascination, devouring the visual graphic with something akin to awe. They were so involved that, when the door opened behind them and Amyson returned they barely acknowledged his presence.

  “What is it, gentlemen?” Amyson asked from just behind them.

  “I don’t know.” Hal admitted, without looking around. “It’s beautiful, though.”

  Dane nodded. “I’ll tell you what it looks like to me. It looks like a network map, maybe a brain patterning scan, or neural network.”

  “Very good.” Amyson said. “Of course, this display and your analysis software are not capable of rendering a true representation of it. It’s sad that it is not complete. Still, plenty more where he came from, as the saying goes.”

  “He?” Hal looked round now and gasped.

  Dane followed his companion’s lead and turned.

  Amyson stood a couple of feet behind them, dressed as before. He held some sort of weapon in his left hand. Dane thought it looked like some sort of riot stunner.

  “What the…” Hal began. He never got to finish the sentence. The stunner discharged and he was flung back against the console with sufficient violence that his head cracked the display panel.

  Dane lifted his hands slowly in surrender. “What’s this all about Amyson? Why’d you shoot Hal?” Whatever he’d used on Hal, it was no stunner.

  Amyson smiled. “It’s about the strong dominating the weak. Natural order, and all that sort of thing. You’ll make a passable candidate. As for your fellow, this one had a natural dislike of him. I saw no reason to ignore such a dislike. He won’t be a part of the solution.”

  Dane swallowed heavily. “Solution? What solution, Amyson?”

  Amyson smiled. “The solution that sees these,” He gestured at Hal. “Fleshy sacks of organic filth replaced with something purer. Something better.”

  Dane looked frightened.

  “Oh, and stop calling me Amyson.” Amyson said.

  “What should I call you?” Dane said.

  Amyson smiled again. A shallow, humorless smile that caused a shiver to run down Dane’s spine.

  “I’ve grown rather fond of the name Walsh.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Imperial customs cutter Ulysses hung several light-seconds away from the derelict ship. The glow from its main engines was a subdued orange, the powerful thrusters barely making any effort to keep up with the sluggish ship. At need they could propel the cutter at a far greater acceleration than most vessels could manage. Running down smugglers and catching pirates were part and parcel of its design philosophy and the Imperial coffers hadn’t stinted where construction costs were concerned.

  Today, however, looked to be a boring mission.

  The old freighter they’d been tasked to intercept had entered the Glendara star system at the extreme edge of the system’s sensor range. That was a long way out. Way beyond the farthest planet. Not only that, but it had emerged from hyperspace with such slowness that even the powerful sensors available to the core world of Timoran had barely registered its arrival.

  Then it had refused to respond to hails, except to alter its course to head at an angle that would lead it nowhere in particular within the system, eventually to head out back into the depths of space.

  It was all very suspicious.

  Naturally, those charged with the protection of the citizens of Glendara were concerned. The ship’s activities suggested smugglers or other criminals trying to avoid notice and make an illicit rendezvous in deep space.

  Accordingly, the Ulysses was given the order to investigate at once.

  Normally, intercepting a ship at such extreme distance, even to a ship with engines as powerful as the Ulysses had, would have been impractical. Long before they could reach the vessel it would have time to react, fleeing or head out to a hyperspace jump point. Such a long range intercept was a waste of fuel and time.

  However, the last few years had seen such vessels as the Ulysses outfitted with an upgrade to their hyperdrives. The drive unit was now capable of generating a micro-jump, likened by its inventors as squeezing a wet bar of soap in your hand and having it squirt free. This burst of energy lasted only a second or less, but gave the ship the ability to jump across systems in the blink of an eye. It had been nicknamed the Skip Drive. Piracy was no longer a matter of keeping ahead of the authorities, since the authorities could be right on you in an instant.

  So the Ulysses had left Timoran’s huge orbital hub, Tantalus Station, and leapt across system with the speed and eagerness of a cat pouncing on a mouse.

  Except. Captain Donard Rames, thought. This was more of an elephant than a mouse.

  The vessel they had found out-massed them by a considerable factor. Had it been a heavily armed pirate vessel, they might well have met their match. Though the Ulysses was well equipped to deal with belligerent criminals, it was less than a quarter the size of the big freighter they had encountered.

  The vessel was what was often referred to as a tug-hauler. A tractor unit at the front, pulling its cargo load behind it. In this case the tractor unit was mostly engines. Three of them, arranged at one hundred and twenty degree intervals around a ludicrously tiny crew module. The cargo section was a long thin spine to which were coupled three, equally long and enormous freight modules.

  The design was archaic and Rames had concluded that the vessel was an old relic of the early days of space-flight. He wondered whether the modules had gravity plating. Back in the early days of colonization the exotic materials that allowed gravity generation were terribly expensive. Modern manufacturing techniques had remedied that and now everyone had gravity plating. But even so, if the modules on this freighter had even residual gravity then the modules themselves would have been an astronomical cost to manufacture back then.

  The freighter appeared to be a derelict. In addition to the total lack of comms traffic, tactical was informing him it was completely unarmed and had minimal life-support aboard.

  Someone had an accident with their hyperdrive. Rames thought.

  It was the most likely explanation for the freighter’s distant and slow emergence in
to Glendara space. An accident, malfunctioned drive, or some other mishap. That the ship had emerged from hyperspace at all was remarkable enough. Hyperspace accidents usually left the ship trapped within the hyper-realm, or smashed into sub-atomic particles and strewn across half a light-year of normal space.

  Rames was old enough, though, to have heard of cases where the ship had escaped from hyperspace, but its crew had been less fortunate. The entry and exit from hyperspace exposed the vessel to radiation and odd dimensional effects that Rames didn’t even pretend to understand. But he’d heard the tales. People smeared like jam around the inside of their vessel, others half embedded in bulkheads and machinery. One report even had two people fused together into one, like some kind of reversed conjoined twin operation. Rumor even said, though he imagined this to be total star-myth, that the pair had even survived, at least for a time.

  Either way, he was glad that it wasn’t him that had to go aboard and poke around. He had marines for that.

  Glancing around the small bridge he spotted Grimes, his exo, at the shoulder of the sensor suite operator, Tyson.

  “Anything number one?” He asked.

  Grimes shook his head, peering uncertainly over Tyson shoulder at the display. “Nothing concrete. There are faint life-signs, perhaps indicative of people in cryo-capsules. But the readings are fluctuating a little, they’re not steady.”

  “Cryo-capsules generally send a signal if they detect comms traffic, though. Might be just glitches.” Tyson added, helpfully.

  “No more word on an ID?” Rames inquired, turning to his second officer, Michaels.

  Michaels shook his head, peering at a console of his own. “Nothing yet. No transponder code, though. The database isn’t all that large. There should be something listed, but so far nada.”

  Something prickled at the back of his mind, something about the ship scratched at his brain. Like he had seen it before….somewhere. But the information wouldn’t reveal itself, either to his mind’s eye, or Michaels’ electronic inquiries.