Alone With Ghosts

urnan wanted to struggle, fight but the darkness held her tight. Perception felt dampness, wet hair. Memmory found nothing, mystery. Up, up she came through the clouds of nothing, wrestling with a tugging in the back off her mind, heaving agains a door barred with vacuum. Waking to blackness, to not knowing, remebering, experience or dream. Melsa Kurnan smelt the repellant odour of long lying, fetid water. It assaulted her sense of smell.Smell? Reality. Melsa driffted to the front of something called now, her face was cold but she could feel very little beyond the damp sensations in her scalp. She mentally shuddered with the though of her suit being soaked in the vile smelling liquid. The vacuum shielding that ran along the crown of her helmet and suit must have released. Eith a deep breathe of the metallic air she sighed for the blessing. Kurnan�s battered consciousness thrashed about. It clawed its way up into an unknown that was still mere fog in her eyes. Tiny, distant voices called to her, pulled at the fine strands of her mind�s perception�struggling, fighting to find a purchase in the realm of the living. They jostled for position, argued over importance and necessity.

Yes, she remembered through the haze and ache of oblivion. Those are the voices of the support team. These echoes of life were the modern soldier�s personal army of subordinates and tin hat bureaucrats. Mod-Tech implants--a whole army of backup personnel stored on micron thin slivers of electronic circuitry just waiting to be called into action.

Kurnan swallowed against her dry throat. The team might be be able to help. The Medic might be of some use, she considered. No! She knew how Surg worked and right now she was too impatient, too confused for the laid back medic. Deliberating over her injuries would take far too long. No, this was something she wanted to think through alone. At least try to think through on her own.

Clenching her eyes in concentration, she tried to restore movement to any part of her body that could still receive the mind�s electrical signals. Nothing. No sensation below her chin. In the silence of the black spotted void behind her eyelids she screamed a plea of salvation and a sobbing wish that her neck was not broken. There was only one thing worse than waking up in a broken body, waking up as a late addition to a neural management core. To find yourself just another ghostly figure amongst the many that were contained in a Sendec Imager. Kurnan felt like crying, right now. I could be little more than a cold metal cylinder lying in mud with a chunk of organic waste encapsulating a memory chip. She cried some more.

Focusing with what she considered to be her own mind she forced her eyes open. Spotted blackness met spotted blackness. She tried again and again to open and see with her natural sensory aids. A sigh of despair became a dry wind through her mind. Blackness still met blackness. �Am I really dead?� a thin cry left her lips. Her mind raced through possibilities and snatched at the fine threads of hope. Tiny voices called to her, beconned, pleaded.

There is, or was the damp feeling in my hair to consider, the foul smell--but that could easily have been the last thing picked up by my dying nerve centre. Kurnan dropped deeper into the hole of bitter realisation--her physical body had died. How long before the Sendec�s power pack fades and I cease to be? How long will I sleep in the world of non existence before some hapless fool trips over my tomb of micro-wizardry? And do I really want to awaken as a bodiless perception of what I once considered self? The depressing thoughts rolled like clouds across the grey blob that was once a living mind. She cried and felt real tears on her cheeks. Greedily soaking up the sensation she gripped on to the last memory of physical life.

One long hour of numbing anguish passed before realisation struck--she was lying beneath the heavy shroud of an alien night and not the eternal abyss of death. The night sky lay hidden by the smoky remains of a cloud. Slowly--ever so slowly--the artificial cloud of atomised debris cleared to reveal the bright stars through the subtle flicker of a vacuum survival dome. The feeble light that trickled down from the sky returned sight to its rightful place--the eyes. In the starlight glow Kurnan felt the grip of death slip away like oil off shiny, new alloy. "I�m alive!" she yelped. "I�m alive!" Laughing. Crazed by flooding relief she sucked coarse air into her lungs, seeing them rise beneath her deadened chest.

Tracker Melsa Kurnan marshalled herself and tried to relax. Assessing her situation to be better than she had thought, she summoned up her bio chart. A pain stabbed sharply behind her right eye--one of the receptor lines must have come loose. Wincing she scanned the diagnostics that marched down the retina of her left eye. The bio readings were some how strange, unreal. Normal. The litany of tiny green script flowed freely over her sight. Even now, lying immobile in mud she felt distant, as though she were watching a monitor scanning someone else�s biological read-out. She cringed. Despite all the advances in Neural Technology and Direct Retinal Data Projection, the massive Consortium of Future Mind Development still faltered. It could not remove the feeling of distance between humans and their tiny implanted machines.

Perhaps Surg would be able to help? she reconsidered as line after line of chemical data rained into her mind--pooled numbing green puddles in back of her eyes. A tendril of thought reached back into the artificial locker room in her brain, sending a beckoning command to the Medic.

Her vision flickered, a tell-tale of a Sendec ghost�s arrival. Surg appeared at the front of her mind and crooned in his smooth cultured voice."I�ve been trying to contact you for several hours, Tracker."

Kurnan looked up into his hollow eyes as he knelt down beside her in the mud. She knew he was a vision in her mind but found it hard to dismiss the image�s hard realism.

"No broken bones, no major ligament damage," the mellow voice rolled over her senses like a warm water bath.

The Medic�s image was not tall. Standing at only one hundred and fifty centimetres, his features were neat and compact, highlighting his placid brown eyes. A scalp of short cropped dark hair clashed with his soft boyish features. This image is from one of Earth�s Sendec stores, she thought. Surg�s skin was far too dark for him to have come from one of the outer worlds. Of all her support team only the Medic had a proper name. It was stencilled on the left pocket of his blue and white checked tunic in bold red letters. The others simply went by their job definitions--Cartographer, Tech (engineer), Logistics, Political Negotiator, Survivalist, Psychologist, Culturalist. Kurnan shrugged off the clambering mind waste and returned to the influence of Surg�s voice.

"Part of the right eye�s retinal projector has dislodged and will require surgery to reconnect it. I�m afraid the right eye vision magnification is impaired. To save you from future irritation I will disconnect this function from the system completely."

A flash arched across Melsa�s mind. -(Stage two redirect)- Then vanished as if a fleeting thought. The pain ceased. Surg�s hands waved over her body in a simulated examination. She felt none of his ghostly touches. Kurnan knew the examination was being carried out internally through the bio management processor but the vision of Surg did a lot to ease anxiety. Seeing a ghost Medic was the next best thing to being in the hands of a living one.

"Why can�t I move? she asked hoarsely. The hard air she breathed sucked up the saliva in her mouth and she hushed out her words with a throaty rasp. There was no need to speak aloud to a Sendec image but most humans still talked to them out of habit.

"I�ve managed to locate a weakness in your spinal cord just below the second vertebrae. It is..."

"That�s it then." Kurnan croaked, shutting out Surg�s analysis. "A broken neck. How long have I got?"

Surg laughed. "You�re not going to die, Tracker. At this very moment I�" The image flickered. "�I am redirecting several surrounding muscle nerves to the weakened area. Your neck is not broken but your spinal cord has been traumatised. The support I�m creating around the area will give the cord time to recover while restoring some of the mobility you require."

"How long?"

"In another hour you will begin to recover some feeling in your extremities, two will enable you to sit up and four will give you moderate mobility. Enough to get you back to Sweeper base for servicing."

Surg winked out leaving her to gaze up at the night. Sendecs tended to lack grace. It was hard to know whether they had completed their task or a power fluctuation had interrupted their signal. Mod-Tech equipment was easy to use but frustratingly difficult to understand.

Kurnan called forward the survival specialist. A Hul. She grimaced. Might as well asses my survival chances while waiting for Surg�s repairs to take effect.

Again the tell-tale flicker before the image solidified, kneeling over her. "Situation?" Kurnan spat.

The wiry thin woman wore no clothing. Her total hairlessness marked her as a one time inhabitant of Hulnar�s Valley on Mayn�s third world, Havenhul. All survivalists came from Havenhul and all looked exactly alike. The Hul race always disturbed Kurnan with its open display of nakedness. Total nakedness in space didn�t seem natural--even if the Hul woman was only a projection.

"The emergency survival dome was deployed the instant your shielding released," the Survivalist said. "The dome is stable but your power supply is weakening. Oxygen within the dome is a conservative mix giving you twelve hours� supply at your current rate of use. The external atmosphere can not be utilised." The solid voice thudded against Kurnan�s brain.

That was another unsettling thing about the Hul; they all spoke with a thick solidity. Their words gave the impression of being constructed from a dense material that threatened to crush you as they left their lips. Dampness against the skin began to instill a deep penetrating ache into Kurnan�s legs. She felt them shiver. Feeling was returning.

The Hul woman continued her situation report. "Sat-comm is limited, radio comm is inoperable, all neural bases are at full function."

"They would be," Kurnan murmured. Implants and their smaller accessories were almost indestructible, according to CFMD product propaganda.

"Tracker," spoke the woman, standing up from Kurnan, "Medic has shared its report and I concur with its findings. On further evaluation and cross referencing with my data core, your survival chances at this moment are zero point four percent, in two hours they will be better than thirty percent. I have instructed medic to start some quick shot adrenalin feeds to increase your body�s projected healing rate. I have altered your nutrient usage for maximum efficiency and begun seratonin feeds to ease morbidity."

Again the image blinked out, this time to Kurnan�s relief. The thud of the Hul�s speech was something she rarely looked forward to and always enjoyed when it stopped. With minimal movement returning she shifted her hand to a sensor point on her neck. One firm press and she tensed as a surge of energy rushed into the radio comm unit embedded in her skull. She had to try it to be sure. Another one of the many human foibles--the lack of trust in Technology, Kurnan grunted.

"Trac..." Kurnan coughed. An avalanche of phlegm gurgled from her chest into her throat. Turning her head painfully to the left she attempted spit it away. Her mouth�s reflexes were slow and clumsy and the sticky mucus failed to clear her lips. Hanging thick and brown from the corner of her mouth. Choking and gagging she managed to free the stringy mass from her lip to hear it splat softly in the mud beside her neck. With a deep groan Kurnan thrust back the bile that erupted from her stomach in a show of gross support. Another racking cough stabbed her chest with pain to complete the two minutes� work out. "Yep, I�m definitely alive." she moaned.

"Tracker bravo, niner, ace relay twelve, to field Sweeper. Do you read?" she spoke in a flat tone, the radio taking the sound directly from her voice box. "Tracker down. Sweeper do you read?" she spoke again after the roaring static ceased tumbling around between her ears� signal pickups. Again the reply was static--then silence. The radio is out, she accepted with finality. She consoled herself with the knowledge that centimetre by centimetre of her battered body was coming back to life.

Kurnan sat against a rock eating a ration bar. Three hours lying in slush had done little for her hunger and the meager ration bar didn�t do much better. Moving, being careful not to over stress her neck, Kurnan walked with with careful measured steps under her glimmering dome. To pass the hours she spoke with the images of her Cartographer and Logistics. With movement restored she was able to recover her badly damaged helmet with its so-called indestructible monitoring system, which, with no surprise to Kurnan, didn�t work. The tracker weapons relay was undamaged. A relay by itself looked like and was no better than a short, tubular, metal club. It wasn�t until the Jumper vessel had deployed its orbiting Star Burner satellites and landed Sweeper bases on a planet�s surface that the weapon became of any practical use. A Star Burner would gather energy from a planet�s closest star, process it and store it in Hyden batteries before sending its energised payload along a narrow band frequency to the relays tubular cased receiver. The cylindrical weapon, once in contact with a Star Burner, would spray a wide arch of raw energy at whatever its carrier pointed it towards. A human�s sole role in a modern battle was to carry these relays into a target zone and position themselves into pre-arranged patterns around the enemy or selected target.

Kurnan felt a bitterness in her mouth. There hadn�t been a war in three generations and still she had to join the millitary. I�m just a carrier for their Sendec toys. I drilled this kind of deployment a dozen times in my sleep and more in the sim-tank. Why did we have to come here? She felt tears flow again.

Down on the surface of the planet with Kurnan and the nineteen other soldiers in her re-con group was the Sweeper ground base that controlled the satellites and most of the battle action. Using the soldier�s helmet monitoring system the Sweeper base can direct relevant fire power to the areas that required it. Nothing remained to chance any more. Even a soldier�s personal weapon was connected to the soldier�s Sendec signal, rendering it harmless when not in the hands of its programmed user. No more disarming, no more captured weapons, no more accidental arming of civilians and, in principle, no more deaths by friendly fire.

"This was only meant to be a recognisance mission. No enemy contact, Logistics, what went wrong?" demanded Kurnan.

"My assessment of the surveillance data says that you were hit on the back of the neck with a rock," said Logistics, standing proud in a well-presented black uniform. Her aged features glowed with experience.

"Thrown?"

"The data suggests that it was an assisted blow," replied the oily voice.

"I don�t suppose the recording shows who hit me?" Kurnan�s lip curled with building rage.

"The perpetrator was unknown due to its standard anonymity." The woman�s blue eyes narrowed as she touched her short grey hair. Her hand movement was smooth, precise.

The image flickered and Kurnan felt a wave wash over her mind. It was brief, strange. She touched a hand to her forehead."What�s that supposed to mean? Did or did you not record who hit me with that rock?"

"Yes. The rock was brought down on your neck by one of your fellow soldiers." The image flickered again.

-(Buffer Load. Stage Three ASM)-

"Has the attacker left the area?" Kurnan asked trying to make sense of the flashed comand code. Must have damaged a systems processor. She considered as the image faultered again.

"I would presume so, but I�I� can�not confirm it."

"Can you project the recording?" Kurnan began to feel uneasy.

"No. Your monitoring system programm is for recorded surveillance not processing. This recording can only be viewed at a Sweeper base." The crisp explanation carried a minor distortion in its upper sound register.

To rest the straining circuitry, Kurnan changed the subject, "If I move to that precipice," Kurnan pointed towards the centre of the rocky outcrop to her right, "will I be able to get a line-of-sight-comm opened to Sweeper base?"

"That would give you a good position but I don�t think the Sat-com is capable of line of sight communications," said the fat, long haired Cartographer blinking into Kurnan�s vision. The apparision startled her.

"Also," continued Logistics, "if the re-con went according to plan, Sweeper base would now be in sector five dash, two, nine. We are in Fallow�s trench which is in sector eighteen, dash, one. That bluff would still leave you one thousand and fifteen metres below the Delta plain, where Sweeper base would be now."

"And if the re-con didn�t?" she asked, swallowing her disappointment.

"Then Sweeper base has returned to the Jumper and we are on our own."

"We!" Kurnan, screamed. The two images winked out instantly as her rage blocked the pathways from the Sendec imager. The neural management core always closed down when erratic signals conflicted with its clear steady lines. That�s why soldiers no longer came from anxious people. "We! We!" she chanted, while marching in small circles under the protective dome. "There�s only me here! I�m the only actual living component here. I�m the one who is trapped on this desolate, bad air planet. Not you! You collection of pitiful little voices. You�re already dead!" she shouted, with a final throwing back of her head, the night chilling her soul with the same emptiness that dropped into her heart. She tried to shatter the oppressive silence with her yells.

"Don�t you ever do that again!" snapped Surg, jumping to life in her mind. "Those muscles haven�t strengthened enough to take that kind of treatment. Attempt something like that again and you really will snap your spinal cord."

"So what?"

"Enough self pitying gesticulating for the moment," soothed Surg, "Logistics reports that if a Sweeper base is in action on the surface you might still be able to make contact. It takes twenty hours to complete a standard re-con and five more to gather up all the orbitals. Your down time now stands at fifteen point seven three hours."

"My limited Sat-com might be able to bounce a rescue signal to the Sweeper from one of the orbitals?" she finished for the medic.

"Its percentage of success is less than eight."

"But it is a chance," she smiled with mild satisfaction.

Surg�s face clouded over with concentration, "I detect a further weakening in the muscle fibres I stimulated to help support your neck." His ghostly hands made to caress the back of her neck, following an exploratory regime. "I�m sorry Tracker."

"Sorry for what?"

"Your bout of violent head waving has damaged some of the muscles I hoped would support and protect the area around your bruised spinal cord. You will not be able to use your Sat-com," he said, sorrow flashing in the image�s soft brown eyes.

"Why?" she breathed.

"You have to be standing in order to use its damaged transmitter."

"But..."

"You will have to lie on the ground until repairs to your neck have been completed," added Surg finishing her thought. "May I suggest, Tracker, that you do as I ask. I will try to stimulate the muscles with re-directed power from one of the Sendec backup batteries, this should help support the damaged area until I can repair the nerves. It will take at least another two hours to give you adequate strength to stand and another three after that to restore your muscle functions to about seventy percent normal."

"But the orbitals?" she cried, easing herself to the ground and sinking into the soft muddy soil, the dank smell of ancient water wrinkling her nose.

"There might still be time. I will send Logistics forward to lay out scenarios while you rest." Surg blinked out.

Kurnan lay crying in the mud, the shimmering protective dome softening the starlight. There would be no rescue or search for her. Tech soldiers were no more than expendable military components--cheaper to replace than to find. She watched as a fine light tracked across the heartless black--an orbital on one of its many passes. "So close, so close." The words dropped sadly from her lips.

Kurnan cried a prayer for her family back home on T�arth. She had not seen them in five hard years. Kurnan had lived all of those years on the orbiting space Tech city of El-Ray, preparing for service. At the age of twelve. Two years into her stay she had dropped to the surface of the blue world of T�arth to have cycle correction surgery. Her father was the only member of the family able to obtain sufficient leave time from work to visit her. Eight minutes of nervous smiles and Now here she was at seventeen preparing to die on a damp, dying world. To die without seeing your mother since ten, or walking through the colourfully rich fields of your home world; to die alone was in itself a tragedy. She touched her breasts through her fatigues, shedding more tears for never having tasted the art of bonding and unity. I wonder if Tundas will weep for me? she thought morosely. He would have been the first to share her precious gift. All she had to do was return from her first mission and he could have shared her body. I wish I had accepted his offer then and there and traded that sweet memory for the sour opposite I�m dwelling in now.

"Tracker!" Kurnan flinched, as Logistic�s voice crashed through her thoughts, interupting her self-pity.

"Don�t move!" snapped Surg, flicking into the scene to wave a stern finger.

"What is it Logistics?" Kurnan answered.

"As you noticed, an orbital passed overhead. From my charts I was able to deduce that it is either an auto surveillance module or one of the communications and relay satellites. Its velocity indicates that the orbital has yet to fire its slowing jets. This suggests..."

"On with it Logistics. If I am to die in this stinking mud I would prefer to do it alone. So unless you have something important or stunning to tell me, I would encourage you to go and climb back into your little metal tomb and contemplate the darkness." Her venom of was wasted on the image - ghosts hardly ever took offence.

"I predict that the orbital will make several more passes before it slows enough for a pick up by the returning Sweeper." The image blinked out.

Kurnan, juggling thoughts an emotions in her mind, remembered something - there was another ghost she needed to talk to. Strumming the skeins of tendrils that spread into the vat of stored personalities she reached for the thing she had forgotten. Kurnan searched for one specialist out of her small collection, easy if you were steady of mind, frustratingly difficult when you threw in unpredictable emotional complexities. The Negotiator winked in front of her mind spouting twisted phrases and hypotheses that were more to confuse and elude than to enlighten. "I would assume that a lawyer will be required if and when you return to the Sweeper. I am sure there is a precedent here for some kind of compensation," the officiously dressed man eased out between his pursed lips. His stylishly cut dark hair glued on top of his round head offered little relief from his blood shot eyes and haggard face. "I have a friend on El-Ray that is expensive but..." She sent him back before he could complete his spiel.

Kurnan cringed at the necessity of such types within her equipment. Finally the image she wanted appeared solidly in her mind�s eye.

The Technician sat defiantly cross-legged beside her head. "About time Tracker," the solidly built Asiatic male ground out through his clenched small teeth. "Have you considered what you will do once the oxygen has been depleted from the dome? Did you know that there is a malfunction in your pressure shielding and that I cannot guarantee that it will hold when you re-close your shielding for vacuum?"

Kurnan felt the skin on her face tense,the implications sank deep into her soul."Can the shielding be repaired?"

"Possibly. A redirection of the Sat-com power pack�s feed cable might enable me to bypass the shielding�s battery and plug the Sat-com�s power pack into the locking module," it said, thoughtfully rubbing its chin. Regaining some of its earlier momentum Technician growled. "If it hadn�t been for the quick action of your emergency sensors you and all of us would be nothing but unrecognisable parts sticking out of a pool of organically fertilised slush."

Its words slapped hard at Kurnan as the realisation of her mistake stung at her pride.

"Now if you don�t mind," it began coolly, "could you please place your left hand inside your helmet and touch the comm stud. I will be able to do a diagnostic on the helmet�s functions through the comm�s circuitry. Let�s see if we can work together to keep you alive. You have wasted precious time, Tracker," Technician grunted.

She lifted her hand, found the helmet laying by her right side and slipped it through the neck opening. Probing with her gloved hand, she tried to locate the tiny stud. Easy with your tongue, almost hopeless with a gloved finger. Technician told her when she had touched it and went to work checking the helmet�s systems.

"Well Tracker," it began, " firstly the Sat-com is damaged and cannot be repaired."

"But the Hul..." she started.

"It had an incomplete report, Tracker. The Hul�s role is to ensure your survival and it used Medic�s shared report to prepare its survival strategy. With your helmet off there was no way it could have known the link was out. It made an assumption on the amount of charge remaining in the power pack on your belt. Tracker, Medic, the Hul and Logistics are not Tech specialists, they only speculate on Tech systems, they do not necessarily understand them." Technician scowled.

"But...But..." she stuttered.

"Panic and Tech systems do not function well together, Tracker. I could not submit a report for share until you summoned me to do so. Orders, Tracker. Your support team functions on orders. If you had been paying attention to your rear monitors at the time of the incident we would not be discussing this matter. You were lucky Tracker, very lucky." Shifting its position the Tech changed the subject. "Fortunately the binding controls are intact, as too is the bio manager. At least with your help, continued life support will be possible."

"The orbital. How will I contact it? How will I get off this drudge of a world? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE!" she screamed at the image. The Tech blinked out under her erratic explosion of thought. She took several deep breaths to calm her self and summoned the Tech again. The Technician appeared in her mind his arms folded tightly across his chest. "How will I make contact with...?"

"Tracker!" the Tech halted her. "If you had followed your training priorities you would not be in this state of distress and out of contact with the Sweeper base. Our first priority is to repair the suit�s shielding. Let us now work with what we have. Agreed?"

"Agreed." She sighed, looking up at the night, seeing the gaps between the stars as the deepening hole of her grave.

Under the instruction of Technician, Kurnan moved her hands over the fat power pack on her right hip and carefully re-directed the Sat-comm�s power lead into the vacuum binding�s control module. It was a ten centimetre square grid on her chest. After several failed attempts to close and lock the shielding she eventually lay on the ground, her body enclosed in the soft glow of the vacuum suit. She would have to wait for the all clear from Surg before she could lock on the helmet and complete the shimmering aura.

"Technician?" she asked idly, as it inspected the seams of her shielding.

"Yes."

"What is your name, and what were you before.." she hesitated, "before this?"

"I was a Tech Major before I died Tracker. Now I am simply a Tech, you cannot have high ranking Sendecs in a support team. Creates a problem with discipline. I have no name," it finished bluntly.

"Are you afraid, Technician?"

"I am only an image projected upon your mind, Tracker. I am only part of a very clever computer program." Technician hesitated, staring with its squinting brown eyes into hers. "Yes, I am, Tracker. I do not understand why this is so, but I am afraid."

Kurnan added another anomaly to her list of irregularities she�d noticed in the ghosts. Something�s not right here, she thought.

"Do you think we could get to know each other better before I die?" she said softly.

"If there is time."

"Thank you, Major." Kurnan would have shook his hand if it were real.

The Technician�s eyebrows rose in a sign of surprise. He smiled then blinked out.

Surg flicked into her mind after two hours lying motionless in the mud. He gave the all clear for her to stand and put on the helmet but to take it easy for the next three hours while he carried out further repairs. It took two attempts to lock the helmet down and power up the full biological maintenance system. Without a functioning monitor Kurnan had to call on the Technician to tell her if the systems were working properly. Most were, but some were suffering due to limited power. Once the dome deactivated they would improve their function. The dome flicked off exposing Tracker Kurnan to the harsh environment. She winced and tensed in preparation for a death that didn�t come.

"Now what, Technician?" she asked.

"Wait I suppose."

"Wait for what?"

"I�m a Tech, Tracker, why don�t you bring forward the Hul and Logistics." He blinked out.

Logistics offered nothing in the way of ideas. According to its knowledge the Sweeper would be long gone. The Hul�s solid voice thumped home some statistics and projections that added up to a conservative estimate of thirty-two hour�s survival. Kurnan dismissed the small band of joy bringers and sat on a nearby rock to contemplate her lack of future. How many times have I died in the last five hours? she thought.

"Mod-Tech!" she cursed. "Full of hypotheticals but not a scrap of practical help."

Kurnan kicked away another stone that she had unearthed with her boot and counted off ten hours since Surg completed his repairs. In the distance she watched a bright star drop from the sky and hover on the horizon. The light approached faster than her sight could grasp until it formed a bright spot in her mind.

-(Systems check.)-

Melsa felt the tug of command and the fleeting feeling of displacement. The world was a maze of light pulsing with monochrome definition.

"Your job?"

Melsa was drawn into a funnel of current, of non being. She heard her voice speak but could not find her mouth with her hands. She couldn�t find her hands.

-(Systems Complete. Load Programe)- She thought she heard the words but they strobed through what she was mind with a warmth beyond physical touch.

"Good. What is systems status?"

Melsa felt the command wash over her. She searched for the answer but knew not where to go.

"It is okay Tracker." Surg�s smooth words carressed the fear away. "Simply access the neural core matrix and the others will open their files for you, upload the answer through Seargent Tundas�s neural decrypter."

"No!" Melsa spiralled down into the abyss of realisation, wanting to scream but having nothing with which to do so.

"I do wish there was another way of programing these things." The tall lean Seargent slid the small cylinder from its receptical behind his left ear.

"A Sendec needs a complete downloaded memory, Tundas, and to date this is the only way to do it." The big, well dressed man hesitated for just a moment before adding. "Legally."

"Are you sure death trauma does�t affect the images?" The Seargent turned the metal cylinder over in his hand, studying its smooth matte surface and remembering the homely girl he had struck down on the planet�s surface.

"I assure you that the Assimilated Stress Management software works perfectly. A low stress interface is established well before the donor actually dies. So your new Tracker by all accounts will perform to all requirements." The man sat down behind a big metal desk. "If there are no further questions Seargent you may return to duty."

The Seargent hesitated. "Are you sure these things aren�t ghosts?" Tundas searched the man�s face for any signs of concern.

"Ghosts!" He laughed. "Come now Seargent you don�t believe in ghosts do you?" Seargent Tundas saluted the man and left the room satified with his Sendec replacement. Slipping it back into place he could have sworn he heard a faint scream.

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