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Mount Robillard
7. A RevelationLancer stood for a while outside the door and watched the quiet image of the clone, a nearly tender smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Then he shook his long hair and walked briskly towards the common room. This time he was fully prepared to step straight into the spotlight and, sure enough, his arrival immediately caught everybody's attention."There you are!" Arria looked as delighted as he sounded. "Please, Lancer, enlighten us! You have now survived our first ever encounter with a live, conscious, Union clone. Tell us about it! Or would you rather tell first about these little trinkets?" He lifted a tube that contained something glittering. "Well, that's pretty quickly told!" Lancer shrugged and proceeded to give a brief account of the scuffle. The Commanders nodded. "Okay, well what exactly did you find out, Edmé?" Osip turned to the slightly grayed doctor who smiled wryly. "I'll tell you, but not with pleasure. It was so stupid of us not to remove that necklace during the preliminary examination, that I'd like to bash myself with something really hard!" He sighed and shook his head vigorously. "Anyway, the pendant is very obviously designed precisely to hold this one pill. And as for the pill itself, it's of a substance commonly called Silver Mist. I'll spare you the exact chemical composition, because it would tell most of you absolutely nothing. The long and short of it is, this amount of concentrated Silver Mist in that pill would be enough to kill a small town quickly, in fact instantly." The doctor paused for breath. "If he really had swallowed it, he would've been dead within a fraction of a second. Plus, this substance has another nasty side: it would've rendered even the dead body completely useless for us. The remains begin to decompose immediately and the process is complete within an hour. The Union certainly seems to leave nothing to chance." "So it seems!" Arria perched on the edge of a table. "Well, Lancer, it really looks like you've secured yourself a project. You shot him down, you found him, you brought him here, you saved his life again, and now you've even talked to him! Did you find out anything that you could tell us?" "In fact, yes." Lancer nodded. "I was talking to him right until you called me. And I promised to go back tomorrow. He's really interesting, you know!" "Hmm?" Osip fixed him with an expectant look. "Where should I start?" Lancer frowned in thought. "Well, first of all, he's called SC-077. And apparently the first two letters are some sort of type specification, and the rest is his eh name. He calls it 'identification', though." He grinned. "Yes, and their very appreciative name for us is 'degenerates'." This announcement was met with howls of laughter. "How kind!" Arria wiped his eyes, still chuckling. "Somehow I still prefer the word 'rebel'... But what do you mean by type specification? Are there several types of clones, then?" The laughter morphed into appreciative murmur and Lancer closed his eyes, wracking his brain to recall the exact words. "He said something like his group being 'all SC's', and I guess I took that be an abbreviation of 'S-clones'. And I remember sort of thinking that then there may be others than S's, too... but maybe I was too quick to make assumptions there?" "Or maybe you weren't," Osip mused aloud. "I agree with you, that's what it sounds like to me, too. I mean, if I only have one type of aircraft, then I don't need to call it anything else but 'aircraft', right? Add a second type, and already I need to have names to distinguish them by." Arria nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "That makes sense," he agreed. "Anything more?" "Oh yes! Then I found out they have something called 'the Code'. It seems that the most horrendous thing I did was to attack him. That I actually jumped on him and bodily grabbed him." Lancer smiled at the dumbfounded faces around him. "You can't imagine how insulted, and horrified, and accusing, he sounded after that. 'You touched me!' he said, like he couldn't quite imagine that such a thing was even possible. Like his whole word had been turned upside down. It was so weird. Plus, he stayed practically glued to the wall after that, as far away from me as possible, and kept looking at me like I was something horribly dangerous." "To him, you probably are. After all, you did something unimaginable to him," Arria pointed out. "You should've seen how he looked at me!" Fonzo's eyes squinted with laughter. Lancer raised an eyebrow. "In his place I'd probably have screamed, not just shuddered in the corner!" he snorted, and Fonzo chuckled. "Well, after hearing this I'm even more convinced that you, Lancer, and nobody else, are the person to go on working with him," Arria said. "But I'm no professional!" Lancer wanted nothing more than to go on with the clone, but felt it his duty to object. Arria lifted his hands up. "Hey which one of us could claim to be that?" he asked. "We are dealing with our first clone ever, and we have no background knowledge. You've interacted with him, and already you could tell us something. You have at least something to tread upon. And if he reacts so jumpy, he'll probably feel a little less intimidated if it's only one person, a person he's already met, coming to see him. At first, at least." "Besides, you have people to consult you," Osip added. "I don't think Rori's here right now, but now correct me if I'm wrong, Edmé isn't he a specialized mentalist?" The doctor nodded. "Rori will be overjoyed to help you. Besides, I think the Commanders are absolutely right. You have the best chances of getting somewhere with the clone. In fact, you are probably the only one who has any chance of getting anywhere with him!" Lancer took a deep breath. "All right," he said, trying hard not to show exactly how excited he felt about the prospect. He thought about the lithe, dark-haired figure in the small room and curiosity churned inside him. "I think I'll go right now to see if Rori's free." Arria's and Osip's gazes followed his determined steps and both men smiled. "He's about to forget dinner, I observe," Osip said. Arria turned sharply and gave him a piercing scowl. "You're an ever hungry beast, Osip Dahomey," he said. "Moreover, you've nearly managed to make me forget that only a few hours ago, your plane took enough of a hit to make you need to visit the ward. But don't think, Commander, that I haven't noticed you've been a bit reluctant to stand ever since you returned from there, or that you walked here with a limp." "So? What's that got to do with dinner?" Osip looked at him innocently. "It's bedtime for big Commanders. You are going to have dinner in your room, lying down." "No way, Commander. Unless you come to keep me company. I want to talk about this, and either we go right now to the canteen to discuss it over dinner, after which I solemnly promise to go and rest, or you come to my room so we can talk there. Your call." Osip cocked his head. "For your information, I hate crumbs in my bed." "I wonder if I could persuade the kitchen staff to lace your portion with sedatives," Arria grumbled while walking towards the door. Osip followed him and grinned. "What contemplating a coup, are we?" "What have I done to deserve you as my fellow Commander?" The blond man was careful not to turn and look at the muscular figure beside him. He could see it a little too well from the corner of his eye, anyway. He slowed down when Osip's limp became more noticeable. "If you can't think of any reasons, then your previous lives must've been drenched in dark deeds." Osip looked smug. "Well well, looks like Lancer didn't need to go very far after all!" Indeed, the pearl-blond head could be seen next to a darker one at a table, and the two Commanders had no scruples about joining them after picking up their dinner trays. "We've come to shamelessly eavesdrop on you!" Osip set down his tray which he had insisted on handling by himself ('you wouldn't be able to carry the amount of food I eat, Arria') and eased his body gingerly into a chair. He grimaced and exhaled slowly, then attacked his meal. "Just carry on talking. We promise not to interrupt." The young mentalist did most of the talking, very obviously inspired by the attentive audience and Lancer's questions. The fact that they knew next to nothing about clones did not phase them in the least, and when all food had been polished off, they still went on for a good while, talking and speculating. Arria's progressively stern glowering finally forced Osip to give in and limp to bed, but by that time they had already heartily agreed that they would let Lancer handle the sessions with the clone, and record them for later analysis and discussion. Everyone present was certain that they wouldn't have to wait very long for the first recording. Indeed, soon after noon the next day the two Commanders sat down in a small team room and focused their attention on the screen in front of them. It lit up to show a pale green room, sparsely furnished with a bed, a small table, and a few chairs. One of those was occupied by Lancer, who leaned comfortably against the wall next to the only door. On the bed they saw a lanky, erect, alert figure. "He really is beautiful," Arria whispered, hushed by the obvious tension radiating from the image in front of them. "And scared." Osip merely nodded. Lancer's pleasant voice sounded from the recording: "How do you feel now? Have you been able to rest properly? And how did you like your meal?" "I have slept well," the clone replied cautiously. "But the meal was strange. I understood the many-colored cubes and little balls were edible, and I did eat them. But I had a sensation I cannot name a peculiar sensation in the mouth, different with the different objects. The nutrition liquid caused a similar, or actually different, sensation as well. I wonder if you could tell me about it? That is… if I am permitted to ask questions." The two men blinked. Lancer blinked too, opened his mouth and shut it again, speechless. "How do they treat them?" Osip breathed in disbelief. Arria shushed him. "Of course you can ask! I mean, how else will I know what I need to explain to you? So you don't know names for those sensations?" Very clearly Lancer was battling with an array of unnamed feelings, most of them unpleasant. The clone nodded. "Well, it's called 'taste'. Things you put in your mouth have different tastes. And probably the liquid didn't taste very much of anything, but I guess it was rather cold. Could that have been it? I mean, you know hot and cold, right?" "Yes!" The clone looked relieved. "Yes, it was cold." "Right." Lancer inhaled deep. "You see, we like it when different things we eat have each their own taste. We like things to taste of something, and also we like to make the raw materials to look different. Did you then find the sensations disagreeable, or just strange? Did they make you feel unpleasant?" The clone frowned thoughtfully before replying. "No, I did not find them disagreeable, merely unfamiliar, and I wondered if it really was proper nourishment." "It is very nourishing," Lancer assured him. "Just different from what you are used to. But, now I have a suggestion for you." "Yes?" "Would you object if I gave you a name?" Lancer asked. "You see, as I explained yesterday, I'm not at all used to calling anyone by a number. So I thought perhaps I'd call you Scott. How do you feel about that?" The clone looked surprised. "Why will you not call me by my identification? SC-077M, or 077, or just Seven? Why Scott?" "It's just somehow so strange to me," Lancer tried to explain. "And since your identification looks like the name Scott, I thought you might not mind terribly much. See? S-C-0-7-7. There's S-C-O, and the number seven looks quite a lot like the letter T. So that's how it occurred to me. But if you don't like it, I'll try to remember." The clone looked at him seriously. "Now that you explain the reasoning, it is not too strange to comprehend. You can call me Scott, Lancer." He was quiet for a while. "Lancer? You were about to explain tickle' to me yesterday." Neither Arria nor Osip could hold back their laughter, nor could Lancer. The clone's eyes opened wide, the very picture of astonishment. "You laugh again?" he asked. "What is the reason for that? I cannot understand. Was it did I say something funny?" "He's endearing," Osip gasped wiping his eyes. "Poor, poor Lancer! How's he going to handle this one?" Lancer's thoughtful pout showed that he was trying his damnedest to solve the very same question. "Oh boy… explaining this would be so much simpler if I could touch you," he mused aloud. The clone cringed visibly. "But of course I won't, don't worry," Lancer continued hastily. "That's why I'm having trouble now. I need to find the words…" He launched into an explanation that was, Osip or Arria gladly agreed, far more satisfactory than anything either of them could have come up with, even given more time to think about it. At least it satisfied the clone. But that only led to another question, and another, and a few more for good measure. Every explanation Lancer offered inevitably contained at least one word or expression the serious-eyed alien was unfamiliar with. A few times during the nearly two-hour-long interview he seemed to catch himself and a shadow of something unpleasant passed over his face Osip suggested shame, Arria opted for fear but at Lancer's gentle prodding, he shook it off and shot another question. It was like floodgates had been opened, and finally Lancer decided that the session was over because he was simply too drained to think straight anymore. "Whew!" Osip said and stretched his mile-long legs under the small table. "I don't know what to say, except that my admiration for the elf-boy has just gone up another few notches. I'd rather be bombarded by a few fighters and AD guns than such a barrage of questions. And tough ones too!" "Mm-hmm." Arria frowned, shaking his head. "But you know, I'm totally perplexed by this. And I know one thing for sure: the more I think about this, the less I like the picture that I'm beginning to see. I mean, he's a clone all right. But by all accounts he's a human clone. According to the doctors, whatever method has been used to put his DNA together, he's still a human being, for crying out loud! And what did we see?" He spread his arms in a helpless gesture. "A human being that hasn't been taught to speak, or understand, much beyond what he would need to fly a fighter plane. A human being in whom it has been ingrained that he mustn't touch or be touched by anybody. A human being who obviously has been expressly prohibited from asking questions, or thinking for himself, or thinking at all! He has been living in a group, not talking, not touching. Like of piece of machinery. Osip, this makes me sick." Osip steepled his fingers in front of his face. "My feelings exactly. I mean, at first it was plain hilarious to listen to them, but it was pretty soon that I began to feel very uncomfortable. For the same reasons as you. And I could see that Lancer felt the same, although he did a good job keeping it to himself." "Yeah." Arria sank deeper into the armchair. "This is going to be one hell of a task. But I'm now more convinced than I ever was that he's the person for it." Osip nodded, chewing on his lower lip like he always did when deep in thought. "If somebody can coax information out of that little creature, it's him. And information's what we need. I have a feeling, though, that it's going to be something we won't like one bit." The two men sat in silence for a long time, the screen blank between them.
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