THE INCARCERATION OF CAPTAIN NEBULA
by Mike Resnick
Mike Resnick’s moving and funny tale of “The Bride of Frankenstein” (December 2009) is a current finalist for the Hugo Award. In addition, Mike has won five Hugos and has had an astounding total of thirty-four Hugo nominations—most of which have been for stories that appeared in Asimov’s. His latest novel, The Buntline Special, will be coming from Pyr this winter. While Mike’s new tale for us is in part a nostalgic nod to the past, it is also a stark look at what could lie ahead if certain issues aren’t resolved during . . .
I am Captain Nebula, and the fate of the galaxy rests solely on my shoulders. It is an awesome burden, but it is mine and I will not shirk it, as I did not shirk it during the cataclysmic battle against the Rylth, or the war against the hideous Malagai. I have been called a hero, but I am just a man doing his duty. If I seem to take extraordinary risks, it is because I can—and because in these perilous times someone must.
I do not know how long I have been incarcerated in this dungeon. Probably I was betrayed by a member of the Alliance, but I cannot bring myself to hold it against him, for like so many others he is weak and the enemy is physically grotesque and intimidating, and will stoop to any means to assure its eventual triumph.
They feed me well here, and thus far I have seen only humans—turncoats, most likely. They give me will-deadening pills which I pretend to take but hide inside my pillow. They encourage me to write my thoughts down, but of course I will tell them nothing that they can use against the Alliance. If they want the position of the fleet or the planetary disposition of our forces, they are going to have to devise more efficient methods of torture than they currently possess. I think it is only a matter of time before Drago sends his hideous lackey Tzandor the Deathbringer here to extract the information he seeks, but they will find that a more difficult task than they can imagine.
* * * *
Another session with Captain Nebula. We still haven’t managed to find out who he is. The FBI has no match for his fingerprints, and thus far his DNA doesn’t seem to be on file anywhere.
It is a most unusual case. I was told that he was delivered, unconscious, to the sanitarium, though the reason for his condition remains a mystery. He seems to be physically fit, there is no sign of any trauma or concussion, his blood pressure and other vital signs indicate a man of perhaps thirty-five years in perfect health.
I had hoped his fantasy would be a temporary delusion, and my biggest problem would be to determine the cause of it and prevent it from reoccurring, but he has been here almost two weeks now and he hasn’t deviated from it one iota. It is a remarkably consistent fantasy, and the details never vary. Whoever he is, I think he read too many comic books or sci-fi magazines when he was a kid.
I’ve put him on a combination of thiothixene and paliperidone, but so far it doesn’t seem to be helping. I have another session with him scheduled for this afternoon. I think if I can just show him that part of this fantasy is false or illogical—any part—it may be just the breakthrough I need.
—P. B. Weaver, M.D., Ph.D.
* * * *
They sent a “nurse” to placate me. The fools think I cannot recognize the notorious Zenobia beneath her white linens, and with her flaming red hair dyed a dull brown. I could easily dispatch her, but then there are the guards on the other side of the door. I have no fear of death, so if I should find out that all they possess are atomic blasters I will take my chances and charge them—but I have information that cannot fall into Drago’s hands. Until I know for certain that they are not armed with psychic extractors that can read my innermost secrets even after death, I cannot risk it unless escape is certain.
I have been in worse situations. Let them gloat now. Their days are numbered.
* * * *
Dr. Weaver: How are you feeling today?
Captain Nebula: I am feeling incarcerated. I assume that comes as no surprise to you.
Dr. Weaver: Have you remembered your name yet?
Captain Nebula: I have never forgotten it.
Dr. Weaver: Surely your parents didn’t christen you “Captain.”
Captain Nebula: That is my name now, and is the only name I will answer to.
Dr. Weaver: I can respect that, and it is how I will address you. But I need the name on your birth certificate for my records.
(Captain Nebula does not reply.)
Dr. Weaver: It is a small request. Won’t you help me out here?
Captain Nebula: If I give you my birth name, you will eventually be able to discover my home planet, and it has suffered enough at the hands of your dark masters.
Dr. Weaver: Can you describe your home planet to me?
Captain Nebula: Certainly not. I might inadvertently mention some feature that helps you to identify it.
Dr. Weaver: All right, I won’t ask again. Let’s go over how you came to be here one more time.
Captain Nebula: I have told you the same thing every time we’ve spoken. My description of events will not vary.
Dr. Weaver: Tell me again.
Captain Nebula: We had just fended off another of Drago’s attacks in the Polaris Sector when word reached me that Tzandor the Deathbringer was thought to be heading to Earth, a planet which has thus far remained out of the battle. I could not weaken our defenses by taking even a handful of ships to Earth, so I came alone.
Dr. Weaver: Where did you land?
Captain Nebula: If you are not the enemy, you are at least in thrall to him. I will not answer that question.
Dr. Weaver: Why do you suppose your ship has not been found?
Captain Nebula: We have improved our invisibility cloak. It now repels all sensing devices.
Dr. Weaver: And what did you do after you landed?
Captain Nebula: I activated the cloak as I felt myself losing consciousness. I woke up here.
Dr. Weaver: If we should convince you that this Deathbringer character is not on Earth, indeed never landed here, what will you do?
Captain Nebula: You will not convince me of anything. If I determine that Tzandor is not on Earth, I will return to my ship and rejoin the fleet.
Dr. Weaver: How many ships are in your fleet?
Captain Nebula: After the last attack, perhaps seventeen thousand, spread across five Galactic Sectors.
Dr. Weaver: Seventeen thousand? And not a single one has come looking for you. Don’t you find that curious?
Captain Nebula: They are under orders to hold their position and defend the Alliance again further attacks. They will not come after me.
Dr. Weaver: They will not come after the fabled Captain Nebula, the galaxy’s greatest hero?
Captain Nebula: This is war. No individual’s life is more valuable than our ultimate triumph over the enemy. I arrived on my own; I shall escape and return to the fleet on my own.
Dr. Weaver: Can you describe this Drago to me?
Captain Nebula: I call him “he” as a matter of convenience, but Drago the Conqueror is more of an it. He is an oxygen-breathing biped, and that is his sole resemblance to a human being. No one knows where he came from. There are those who say he is actually from Andromeda, but I doubt it. He showed up with his armada while we were still recovering from defeating the Rylth, and within a matter of days he had gained control of the Antares and Bareimus Sectors of the galaxy.
Dr. Weaver: Bareimus?
Captain Nebula: It contains the Parsafal Cluster. He decimated those ships we had there, and by the time we were able to regroup, he controlled almost as much of the galaxy as the Alliance did.
Dr. Weaver: How many races are in your Alliance?
Captain Nebula: I really cannot say. More join us to fight against Drago every day. There were seventy-four when he made his first incursions into the galaxy.
Dr. Weaver: What about this Tzandor? Is he the same race as Drago?
Captain Nebula: I have no idea. No one on our side has ever seen him.
Dr. Weaver: Then how do you know he exists?
Captain Nebula: From enemy prisoners, and captured subspace messages.
Dr. Weaver: Thank you, Captain Nebula. This has been a fascinating discussion.
Captain Nebula: Stop patronizing me. You have not believed a word of it.
Dr. Weaver: I never said that.
Captain Nebula: You didn’t have to. It is written all over your face. Ordinarily I would not care what you think, but Drago is real, Tzandor is real, and the threat to your planet and our galaxy is real.
Dr. Weaver: We’ll speak again soon, and I promise to be open-minded about it.
Captain Nebula: You are a fool.
* * * *
Dear Rudolf:
I’m sorry to bother you, but believe it or not, you are the only astronomer I know.
I have a delusional patient here at the Sanitarium who thinks he is some kind of space hero right out of the movies you and I saw as kids, and I am hoping a letter from you, written on the Observatory’s stationary, might help me convince him to examine his delusions.
Therefore, can you please answer the following questions for me:
1. Is there a section or sector of the galaxy called Bareimus?
2. Is there a star cluster called the Parsafal Cluster?
3. We have yet to be contacted by a sentient race—I believe that’s called the Fermi Paradox? If there are a zillion type G stars in the galaxy and most have planets, why haven’t we been contacted? Is it therefore conceivable that there are seventy-four sentient starfaring races of which we know nothing?
4. Is it possible that a being not born on Earth, in this year of 2021 A.D., could convince every medical device we have that he is a member of the human race?
Thanks for your help, Rudolf. Hopefully this will get the ball rolling, because I cannot begin to effect a cure until we disprove at least some of his delusions.
Your friend,
Pete Weaver
P.S. What the hell is a “subspace message”?
* * * *
Dear Pete:
In answer to the questions you posed:
1. There is no section of the galaxy known as Bareimus, nor is there any star of that name.
2. There is no star cluster known as the Parsafal Cluster, nor is there any star named Parsafal.
3. The odds of seventy-four sentient races co-existing in the galaxy at this moment are astronomical, but then, to be honest, so are the odds of no other sentient races existing at this moment. I find it highly unlikely, and even more unlikely that if they do exist none of them has contacted us.
4. I will state unequivocally that an alien appearing to be identical to a man is an impossibility. By the way, since you have been communicating with him (and I remember from college that you were terrible at foreign languages), you might ask him why he speaks English.
Yours,
Rudy
P.S. A subspace message is an indication that your patient read too much Doc Smith and Edmond Hamilton as a kid.
I am convinced that Weaver is a dupe rather than a turncoat. That is not a great compliment, but it means I won’t kill him when I make my escape.
I think they know what I’m planning. I’ve had these headaches since I first came here, and their frequency and ferocity have increased. My suspicion is they know I am not taking their will-deadening medications, and they are now putting headache-inducing agents in my food.
Well, I went without food for almost three weeks when the Malagai had me imprisoned in the dungeons of Tarmath. I can do it again if need be.
It also occurs to me that when I make my inevitable escape from this place, I cannot go directly to my ship and return to the fleet. The enemy clearly has a foothold on Earth, and I cannot leave it to Drago’s tender mercies, which are neither tender nor merciful. I am hesitant about recruiting any locals to help me. They seem a decent if misguided people, and they can’t have any idea of the forces that oppose them, or the dangers awaiting them. No, once I am free I shall have to seek out the enemy and somehow find a way to dispatch them single-handedly. It seems an awesome undertaking, but I defeated them on Boganti II and Tarmath and Melipone IV, and I can do it here. I may not survive, but there are things that are more important than Captain Nebula, and freedom from tyranny is first among them.
* * * *
Memo to Nurse Ralston:
I am seeing absolutely no change in our mysterious spaceman. I think you’d better up his dosage to 500 mg, and go from twice a day to three times.
—Dr. Weaver
* * * *
She thinks I cannot see through her disguise, that the extra padding in her starched white uniform can hide those curves, but she is mistaken. She is Zenobia, and her presence means that her consort, Tzandor the Deathbringer, is somewhere on Earth, doubtless nearby.
I have to engage her in conversation, play the medicated automaton, and somehow find a way to learn Tzandor’s plans from her. Whatever his purpose here, it must be big if it has brought both the Deathbringer and the Pirate Queen to this one location on a small, unimportant planet that is far out on the Spiral Arm.
Except that their presence here means that it is not an unimportant planet, and I must learn why.
* * * *
Dr. Weaver: How are we feeling today?
Captain Nebula: I am feeling fine. I cannot speak for you.
Dr. Weaver: Is the Earth still under attack?
Captain Nebula: The Earth has never been under attack—yet.
Dr. Weaver: That’s right. You are here to protect us.
Captain Nebula: If I can. At the very least I am here to assess the situation, and to warn you.
Dr. Weaver: And perhaps lead us against the enemy?
Captain Nebula: Perhaps.
Dr. Weaver: I have asked my friend, the astronomer Rudolf Magnussen, if there has been any unusual activity anywhere in the solar system. He says no.
Captain Nebula: This is the same man who told you I cannot exist?
Dr. Weaver: We know you exist. He questions your origins, not your existence.
Captain Nebula: He is a fool, armored in his ignorance.
Dr. Weaver: Please, let us have no more acrimony.
Captain Nebula: I risk my life to save your planet, you call me a madman or a liar or both, and you want no more acrimony?
Dr. Weaver: I have called you neither, and I will not quote or refer to Rudolf Magnussen again. May we continue?
Captain Nebula: Keep your word about that, and we can continue.
Dr. Weaver: May I assume that English is not your native language?
Captain Nebula: That is correct. I learned it from your radio and video transmissions while I was approaching Earth.
Dr. Weaver: What is your native language?
Captain Nebula: You couldn’t pronounce it.
Dr. Weaver: Can you say a few lines in it?
Captain Nebula: Yes I can, and no I won’t.
Dr. Weaver: Why not?
Captain Nebula: You are recording this. If Tzandor should get his hands on it, he will know where my home planet is, and will bend every effort to destroy it.
Dr. Weaver: Do you still have family there?
Captain Nebula: Change the subject. I will yield no information about . . . about my home world.
Dr. Weaver: Have you family anywhere else? A wife, perhaps, or children?
Captain Nebula: I did, once.
Dr. Weaver: What happened to them?
Captain Nebula: Drago had them put to death while I was infiltrating his headquarters in the Masprell Sector. It was not a death I would wish on anyone other than Drago and Tzandor. I knew then that I could never take another lifemate, that any woman who is seen in my company is immediately at risk. Perhaps when this campaign is over . . .
Dr. Weaver: What is Drago’s purpose?
Captain Nebula: The conquest of the galaxy, of course.
Dr. Weaver: But to what end? The galaxy’s a pretty large place. I should think conquering it and administering it are totally different disciplines.
Captain Nebula: He wants to plunder it, not administer it.
Dr. Weaver: I repeat: to what end? Once he rules the galaxy, what else is there?
Captain Nebula: A billion other galaxies. I accessed your history during my approach here. Did Alexander or Genghis Khan or Tamerlaine worry about what they would do after their wars of conquest had ended? For Drago, as for them, conquest is not a means to an end, but an end in itself.
Dr. Weaver: Perhaps the path of least resistance is to lay down your arms, surrender forthwith, and say, in effect, “We’re yours. Now feed, house and nurture us.”
Captain Nebula: He revels in death, and he takes his sustenance from suffering. I did not become Captain Nebula to surrender to him.
Dr. Weaver: How did you become Captain Nebula?
Captain Nebula: The Rylth enslaved seventeen worlds of the Crab Nebula. Most of our forces were engaged against the Malagai at that time. I was not even a member of our armed forces, I was just a young man who saw something wrong and knew he could not sit idly by. So I landed covertly on the nearest world, destroyed a number of major ammunition dumps while rallying the people behind me, and then did much the same on world after world.
Dr. Weaver: So that’s where you got your name—emancipating the worlds of the Crab Nebula. You’re a genuine hero.
Captain Nebula: I’m just a man who saw something terribly wrong and said “This shall not stand.”
Dr. Weaver: You make it sound easy.
Captain Nebula: Only if you think three months of privation and torture in the dungeons of Lamark V was easy.
Dr. Weaver: Our medical team found no scars or other signs of torture when they examined you.
Captain Nebula: Our cosmetic surgery is far beyond yours. They would be impossible for you to detect.
Dr. Weaver: You have an answer for everything.
Captain Nebula: Far from it. But I have an answer to every question with which you hope to confirm your belief that I am a liar or a madman, or both.
* * * *
Memo to Dr. Weaver:
In response to your query, I see no change whatsoever in the patient, which makes me think he is only pretending to take his medications. In fact, I would feel much more comfortable if one of our male attendants accompanied me whenever I must go to his room. I don’t like the way he looks at me.
—Nurse Fiona Ralston
* * * *
I have had four more sessions with Captain Nebula since my last entry here, and to be honest, I will almost hate to see him finally cured. I wish I could eradicate our space hero’s delusions while leaving the values that accompany them intact. I realize that nobility and self-sacrifice are somewhat outdated concepts in our modern era, but I can’t find anything wrong with them. I’m reminded of when I’d go to the movies as a kid, and the sergeant who was about to storm an enemy position would give a little speech to his men about patriotism and honor and courage and, yes, sacrifice, and we all snickered—but later, when I thought about it, I couldn’t figure out why we snickered. Probably because we knew we’d never be able to live up to those ideals.
Captain Nebula is clinically insane, there is no question of it, and I imagine that if we turned him loose he might decide that the mayor and the governor were Drago and his henchman and attempt to kill them, so until he’s cured he must remain here . . . but in a non-professional way I shall be sorry to see him become just another man on the street: selfish, lacking compassion, looking for shortcuts.
Today I asked him why, if he’s from another star, he cares what happens to Earth. His answer was simple and straightforward.
“If I turn my back on Earth, then why not turn it on every world Drago covets? If I will not save your children from living their lives in bondage, why should I save anyone’s, including my own?”
“Have you any children?” I asked. “I thought they were supposed to be dead.”
“If I do or if I don’t, would either invalidate my answer?” he said, and I had to admit that it wouldn’t.
Later I asked him what he planned to do when the war is over.
“I do not expect to survive it,” he replied.
“Even though you are Captain Nebula?” I said.
“Precisely because I am Captain Nebula.”
I asked what he meant by that.
“It is my job to carry the battle to the enemy, and to be a lightning rod. If I weren’t here, he would concentrate his attacks on those who cannot defend themselves as well as I can. If I do not keep showing myself, if I do not remain in the vanguard, then he will be free to concentrate his forces elsewhere. He might even choose Earth.”
“Why would you sacrifice your life for Earth?” I asked.
“It is not Earth I would sacrifice myself for, but freedom,” he responded.
And I am going to “cure” that. Sometimes I wish I were a ditch digger or a used-car salesman.
—P. B. Weaver, M.D., Ph.D
* * * *
They are an essentially decent people, these humans. The nurses seem sincerely interested in helping me recover—not that I have anything to recover from—and this forces even Zenobia to imitate their concern.
As for Dr. Weaver, he remains my primary contact with the world beyond this facility, which calls itself a sanitarium but is a place of incarceration regardless of what it is called. I have asked him to supply me with news of the world beyond these walls, and he has finally supplied me with both the local newspaper and a small television.
The signs of Tzandor’s presence are subtle, but they are definite: a jetliner crashes in Argentina, a serial killer murders six women in New York, ten innocent bystanders are killed or wounded in a London bank robbery, terrorists destroy a building in Spain, three young girls are raped in Hong Kong, tribal genocide continues in a small African country. One such incident could be explained, but this many cannot occur by chance, not on a world that can produce such decent men and women as I have encountered during my brief stay here.
Political parties want what is best for the country; why can they not act in harmony? Why do even the announcers on the news channels have such different views of reality, and such acrimony toward those with other opinions? Why do humans make war against their own species?
It must be Tzandor; there can be no other reason for such pointless and unnecessary suffering, such meaningless hatred, and that makes it all the more imperative that I effect an escape before too much longer. The people of Earth are already too accepting of these tragedies, too willing to blame them on chance or anything other that their true cause. They cannot conceive of all this pain, all this senseless tragedy, being the work of a thinking being, and that makes them all the easier for Tzandor to conquer, for they will never acknowledge the existence of such a being until it is too late.
I intuit that I shall die on this forlorn world, far from those I hold dear, but if I can prevent this helpless planet and its innocent populace from falling under Drago’s influence, my life will not have been in vain.
* * * *
I had a long session with Dr. Weaver this morning. He actually brought a number of scientific and astronomical texts with him, as if he thinks they will make me doubt my purpose or my sanity. All of his arguments and his rigorously argued “proofs” mean nothing. I am Captain Nebula, and I am here to save a gritty little people that have no idea that they will soon need salvation.
* * * *
This case is not doing much for my self-esteem. Far from eradicating his delusions and exposing his fantasies for what they are, he adamantly clings to them, and from time to time I find myself almost wishing that they were true, that there was a decent galactic union composed of sane and compassionate beings, and that there was a Captain Nebula to protect them when they were challenged by threats from villains whose like exists only in moldering pulp magazines and perhaps Saturday morning serials.
He seems to have taken a dislike to Nurse Ralston, and I am considering transferring her to another ward. I wonder: would I do that for any other patient? Am I accommodating him because I respect him, or because I respect the fantasy of what he is, the noble sentiments coming out of the mouth of a deeply disturbed patient? I truly don’t know.
—P. B. Weaver, M.D., Ph.D
* * * *
Memo to Nurse Ralston:
I am seeing absolutely no change in Captain Nebula. I’m convinced that he’s only pretending to take his medication. I think to be on the safe side it would be best to inject it directly into him; that way there can be no doubt.
—Dr. Weaver
* * * *
Zenobia has figured out that I am hiding my pills, and today entered my room with a hypodermic needle. I feigned a seizure, which promptly drew a few other staff members, and by the time I allowed them to calm me down, the injection was quite forgotten. But I can’t feign a seizure every night. I think I shall have to effect my escape within the next day, because once the enemy forces its will-deadening drugs upon me, I doubt that I will have the ability or even the desire to escape.
I will watch and wait, and when the opportunity presents itself, I will finally take my leave of this dungeon.
* * * *
Wilson has asked to examine our Captain Nebula. Evidently the entire staff is talking about him. To be honest, I don’t know if they are more interested in his bizarre claims or his seeming rationality—but more than one of them has told me that they actually hope I don’t cure him, that it would be nice if whatever has caused his idealism was contagious.
Well, I’m having no luck with our space hero, so I think I’ll give Wilson a crack at him. I’m off tomorrow, so that’s a good time for him to see if he can do any better. I’ve warned him that while some of the patient’s claims are lurid and indeed ridiculous, his stories of the past month have had the most remarkable inner consistency of any delusion I’ve yet encountered. I’ve made so little headway—none at all, actually—that I suspect I’ll actually be annoyed if Wilson can step in and make any progress.
And, to be honest, I’ll miss Captain Nebula. Not the man, of course; I don’t even know the man. But the persona who would lay down his life for me, simply because he can.
—P. B. Weaver, M.D., Ph.D
* * * *
My God! I leave for one day and we practically have a riot—and we lose a patient!
As it has been reconstructed for me, Nurse Ralston entered our Captain Nebula’s room to administer his hypodermic, and he went berserk, grabbing her and trying to beat her senseless. Her screams brought instant help. He made it as far as the corridor when six of the attendants rushed up to subdue him. I am told that he fought like a combination of Bruce Lee and Mike Tyson, hurling huge muscular bodies everywhere, before they finally overcame him. (Four of them are still recuperating from their injuries.)
Wilson was the senior doctor on duty, and he concluded that electric shock therapy was called for. They moved the patient to what we euphemistically call the Therapy Room, strapped him down, and administered the charge—
—and for the first time since the facility opened twenty-three years ago, a patient died in the course of electric shock therapy. There will be a Board of Inquiry to determine exactly what happened, but there were enough witnesses that I am sure Dr. Wilson will be totally exonerated.
There are those who say Captain Nebula was as crazy as a loon, to use a most unprofessional description, and I can’t seriously disagree with them. He was the most difficult case I’ve encountered in years, and he finally snapped—but I came to respect, not him of course, but what he thought he was.
I’ll miss him.
—P. B. Weaver, M.D., Ph.D
* * * *
Subspace Transmission:
Drago—
The deed is done, and the last obstacle to our victory in this Sector has been removed. I’d have preferred to keep him incarcerated here, and eventually parade him out before the holocams either as a totally defeated prisoner or a drugged “convert.”
But he was able to identify Zenobia despite her disguise, and I could not take the chance that he might kill her, or worse, force her to admit the truth of his “delusions” in front of witnesses. I have adjusted the record so it will show that as “Dr. Wilson” I gave him a normal, non-lethal charge, and they will eventually conclude that he died of heart failure.
So much for this worthless dirtball. It will offer no resistance now. I will never know what he saw in them or why he thought they were worth defending, a dull, ugly, little race on a dull, ugly, little planet.
I await your orders. Shall I enslave them, or just destroy the planet? The odds are finally in our favor, so set me a more difficult task next time, and woe betide any who stand in my way.
—Tzandor
Copyright © 2010 Mike Resnick