Koven stood in his quarters on the cruiser and started the message.
It was a priority one message from Professor Wingut. This was another first for Koven. He’d never gotten a priority one message before.
But then most of his missions were crap missions. Go find this person and tell them this. That mostly. And it was mostly to kids. Koven wondered if anyone ever measured the amount of trauma he caused some of those kids. How would you like it if some grown-up appeared out of nowhere and told you that if you ever study human pathogens you will kill billions of human by mistake. Imagine telling that to an eight-year-old.
Koven was once required to tell a six-year-old child that if he worked on personal transport device technology that his parents would die. Along with him, in a gruesome accident. Yes, most of his missions were crap.
He did get to give someone a secret once. It was a math formula. Some sort of faster optimization method. But mostly just giving warnings, that sort of crap.
Koven stood stiffly in his quarters for a moment before he realized it and sat down on a chair. He started the message from Professor Wingut and his image began to move.
“Greetings, Koven Modi. Good to speak to you again. I got your report. Good thorough work. Thank you.”
Professor Wingut moved closer to the camera.
“Koven, we’re stretched as thin as a molecule right now. Almost everybody is out looking for Klept. We’re all trying to stop him from collapsing us early. And that means we’re got no teams to support you. I’ve got nobody. They won’t even let me send out people from the bench. I would send Larn, but Longley won’t let me.
“So let me get to the point. I need you to get all of our tech back from Earth 7. Bring it back or destroy it, those are your options. And we need you to do it before the next regular department meeting. We’re doing revly meetings right now, but that’s only because of the crisis. We’ll still have our regular meetings, and that’s what you must not exceed. Remember Earth 4.”
Let me tell you quickly about Earth 4. A not-so-good biologist with allergies on Earth 4 had created a virus to destroy the biggest trigger for his allergies, cats. His virus would destroy all cats on Earth 4 within six weeks. But unknown to him, the virus he had created was highly adaptable and had already begun to mutate into a form that could be transferable to humans, fortunately not a trigger for the biologist’s allergies. Despite this, humans began to perish also, just on a slightly longer timeline.
The History Department became aware of the circumstances. It was discussed at length among the council in attendance, and while there was no vote, it appeared there was consensus to intervene, and quickly. That is how everyone thought it would resolve when they went on their end-of-semester holidays.
When their holiday term was over, many professors were surprised to find that no intervention had happened. Officially, there was no request for a quorum vote, so there was no authorized action. Longley refuses to answer any questions.
But here is some background information: Earth 4 was a bit of prime real estate. An existing planet, inhabitable, and with limited human abuse to date. These command a premium price from property developers. We’re talking billions. Long story short, Longley let the virus destroy all the humans and the cats and then sold the planet to a property-development firm and put the billions into the departmental budget. Enough to power the department for a very long time. He made the History Department at the University on Centrum Kath one of the wealthiest organizations in the galaxy, as well as the largest repository of knowledge in the known universe.
Wingut wanted Koven to know that planetary repopulation as done on Earth 4 was a possibility, even if remote.
“They might just choose to wipe everyone again,” said Wingut.
By wiping he meant every human memory on Earth 7. They would all wake up like their ancestors, no memory of anything, not even language. Re-stone aged. The famine begins the next day.
“If you can get it all back before the meeting, I can argue to let it go. No consequences. But you’ve got to be successful, without exception.
“Good luck, Koven, even though we know it’s not about luck. Strong skills, young man.”
Koven felt himself breathing faster. He knew the fear that was coming next. He would soon be a prisoner of it again. The edge of the water, the leeches, his drowning brother. He tried to steady his breathing but failed. The attack lasted for nearly ten toxs. He was beside the lake again, frozen while his brother died. But even the panic can die just like a brother. And eventually the grip loosened and he could slowly feel himself starting to relax.
When he had recovered, he called the Ops Commander, Prontu Beyes.
“What do you want, shit stain?” asked Koven’s favorite Non. Prontu had been in the engineering department when he won a scholarship to study Operations Management in the History Department. It was called a scholarship, but it was really just a way of getting thousands of people to play an aptitude game and then recruiting the winner.
“I got a message from Wingut that I am to retrieve all of the technology,” Koven replied.
“Or destroy. You forgot that part,” replied Prontu.
“You’ve already seen the message?”
“Yes. Before you even saw it,” Prontu said.
“But I think he’s made a mistake. I’m not the man for the job.”
“Thank Klept for that, because now you are,” replied Prontu.
“But Pron…” said Koven in a whiny voice.
“Don’t start your ‘but Pron’ crap with me again. I can’t help you skate through this one, Ko. I told you this would happen. It happens to every agent. You all think you can find the safe seam in the work. And I’ve told every damned one of you that there is NO SAFE SEAM. In the end you meet your enemy in the mirror and you must overcome him.”
“But we don’t even have the recommended number to proceed,” Koven pleaded.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Ko. Be thankful for the Agreement of Historians.”
The Agreement of Historians is an important agreement reached several thousand revs ago. The basis is this: that if someone is going to have the most dangerous job in the galaxy, then there is the distinct possibility they might die while doing their job. And if they have been doing nothing but missions and projects, then when they die they won’t have lived much of a life. If it is true that a person’s life flashes before them when they are about to die, then these poor slobs will only be seeing scenes from work mostly. This occurred to some agents who decided that this was not fair to them. And they figured it out just as the graduate students were complaining that they were tired of spending their weekend grading papers for the fat, lazy professors, whose ranks they one day wished to join. An alliance was formed.
As a result of the Agreement of Historians, they get weekends off when they are not on a mission and one rev every ten revs even if they are on a mission. Nothing is that important that it can’t wait for a historian to have a bit of their life back. The strike went on for twenty-six revs before the department finally caved in to the demands.
So while Koven would be risking his life trying to get back (or destroy) the technology from Earth 7, at least every ten days he would get a day off, so he wouldn’t have to die with insufficient social memories.
“But Pron…” said Koven.
“Stop it, Ko. This is your own doing. Shit your pants and keep moving forward.”
“But it’s harder to kill someone that is running away” Koven replied
“Cowardice is the mortal enemy of self-esteem.” —The Final McGee