The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi Read Free Book Online Page B

rarely took more than a glass of water. Robbins wondered how this ridiculous protocol ever got started. He was hungry.
    The general’s mess sat at the terminal of Phoenix Station’s rotational axis and was surrounded by a single shaped, transparent crystal that comprised its walls and ceiling. It gave an astounding view of the planet Phoenix, which circled lazily overhead, taking up nearly the entire sky, a perfect blue-and-white jewel whose resemblance to Earth never failed to give Robbins a sharp jab in the homesickness centers of the brain. Leaving Earth was easy when one was seventy-five and the option was death of old age within a few increasingly short years. But once you left you could never go back; the longer Robbins lived in the hostile universe the human colonies found themselves in, the more fondly he remembered the flabby but relatively carefree days of his fifties, sixties and early seventies. Ignorance was bliss, or at the very least was more restful.
    Too late now, Robbins thought, and directed his attention back to Mattson and Szilard. “Lieutenant Wilson seems to think it’s the best chance we have of understanding what was going on in Boutin’s head. In any event, it’s better than what we have now, which is nothing.”
    â€œHow does Lieutenant Wilson know that it’s Boutin’s brain-wave he’s got in his machine? That’s what I want to know,” Mattson said. “Boutin could have sampled someone else’s consciousness. Shit, it could be his cat, for all we know.”
    â€œThe pattern is consistent with human consciousness,” Robbins said. “We can tell that much because we transfer hundreds of consciousnesses every day. It’s not a cat.”
    â€œIt was a joke, Robbins,” Mattson said. “But it still might not be Boutin.”
    â€œIt’s possible it could be someone else, but it doesn’t seem likely,” Robbins said. “No one else in Boutin’s lab knew he was working on this. There was no opportunity to sample anyone else’s consciousness. It’s not something you could take from someone without them noticing.”
    â€œDo we even know how to transfer it?” General Szilard asked. “Your Lieutenant Wilson said it was on a machine adapted from Consu technology. Even if we want to use it, do we know how to do it?”
    â€œNo,” Robbins said. “Not yet. Wilson seems confident he can figure it out, but he’s not an expert in consciousness transference.”
    â€œI am,” Mattson said. “Or at least I’ve been in charge of the people who are long enough to know about it. The process involves physical brains as well as the consciousness that’s carried over. For this we’re down one brain. Not to mention there are ethical issues.”
    â€œEthical issues?” Robbins said. He failed to keep the surprise out of his voice.
    â€œYes, Colonel, ethical issues,” Mattson said, irritably. “Believe it or not.”
    â€œI didn’t mean to question your ethics, General,” Robbins said.
    Mattson waved it away. “Forget it. The point stands. The Colonial Union has a long-standing law against cloning non-CDF personnel, alive or dead, but especially alive. The only time we clone humans is to stuff people back into unmodified bodies after their term of service is done. Boutin is a civilian, and a colonist. Even if we wanted to, we can’t legally clone him.”
    â€œBoutin made a clone,” Robbins said.
    â€œIf it’s all the same we won’t let the morals of a traitor guide us in this, Colonel,” Mattson said, irritated again.
    â€œYou could get a research dispensation from Colonial law,” Robbins said. “It’s been done before. You’ve done it before.”
    â€œNot for something like this,” Mattson said. “We get dispensations when we test weapons systems on uninhabited planets. Start messing