The Replication of Lydia Goshawk

About the Book

What if you were to regain consciousness and find yourself in an incubox? The Meteor V test platform had gone berserk, resisting your struggle to keep it in the lunar launch orbit. Your last brief memory was that of your safety capsule launching, but with the realization that the launch, somehow, was wrong. There is a tap tap on the observation window, you look up. You see a woman’s face, surmounted by a surgical nurse’s cap. She beckons, and tells you through the incubox speaker system that she is going to put a mirror in the window, “So, Commander, you’ll be able to see how you turned out.” She smiles. You are not in the least anxious to see what you look like. You know damned well what you look like. Lydia Goshawk’s face would win hands down in the contest of who was the ugliest officer in the Space Fleet. You watch her face being replaced by a glassy surface. You are staring at the face of Helen of Troy. Helen of Troy looks at you incredulously. This is the story of Lydia Goshawk, transformed by replication into someone else, that someone being given the name of Lydia’s dead-at-birth fraternal twin, Elizabeth—in effect, a forged identity. She has been given both her forged identity and a mission. The objective story is the story of her mission. She has been assigned the unraveling of the mystery of five successive failures of Project Meteor, the vehicle that will carry man into interstellar space. She is the only survivor. There is evidence that these failures are the product of sabotage, but the how of the sabotage is unknown as are the why and who. The subjective story is Lydia’s effort to define her new identity. Not only is she different in body and appearance from her original self, but she quickly realizes that she thinks and perceives things differently. Not only has she emerged with Helen of Troy’s face, she has emerged with Lizzy Goshawk’s brain. Who is Lizzy Goshawk? A subjective sub-story runs in parallel with the subjective story. This is the story of Emily, MIT’s latest failure in artificial intelligence. Lizzy suspects that Emily, in fact, is the MIT Robot Laboratory’s breakthrough into creating a full consciousness. They have failed to understand this or grasp that Emily is far brighter than they are. Emily easily outwits them. The MIT Robot Laboratory, remainders Emily to Lydia Goshawk—who adores her. The affection is mutual. Lydia leaves for the Meteor V trials at the Lunar base. She does not return. Miss Emily is told that Lydia has been killed in the disastrous launch of Meteor V. She has been inherited by Lydia’s younger twin sister—whom she has never met or heard about. She is introduced to Lizzy who does not resemble Lydia in any way, although she is supposed to be Lydia’s younger twin. She suspects that Lizzy was responsible for Lydia’s death. Lizzy undertakes her dangerous mission with Miss Emily who has reluctantly accepted her. Miss Emily is certain that Lizzy has killed Lydia in order to steal her. Miss Emily is bribed into cooperation by Lizzy with the purchase of a fiery red fake antique Lagonda that Emily will drive as Lizzy’s chauffeur. When Emily learns that she will be allowed to do the shopping and drive the Lagonda to shop with, her resistance crumbles, She succumbs when Lizzy promises to outfit her in the latest in robot fashions. Space Fleet Intelligence augments Lizzy with the loan of Charley Chase, the famous actor, the John Barrymore of Intelligence, who received his first Oscar playing the role of the Pharaoh’s cat in the Curse of Ra, in which the Pharaoh’s greatest general, Radames has been turned into a cat by the curse of the dreaded Mummy High Priest, Ramfis. The Mummy High Priest was jealous of captive Princess Aida’s affection for Radames. Lizzy discovers that Charley Chase has been replicated by the same malicious bungler, Chief Surgeon Wattles, who converted Lydia Goshawk—whom he hated—into Lizzy Goshawk, a perfect fa

About the Author

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the close of the Cold War, the author graduated from his career as archaeologist of buried truths. Having spent his career attending wars, beginning with World War II, being in Seoul in 1950, in time for the Korean war, and doing several tours of Vietnam, as well as a dozen undeclared wars, he proposed to excavate fictions instead of truths and enjoy not attending wars, declared or otherwise. The shift from Intelligence to Fiction has taken a diagonal walk, moving from present to future, to avoid breaking the compact he signed to reveal no secrets, no matter how trivial. That work he has left to the Media, which, in general, cannot distinguish between truth and fiction. If in doubt read the New York Times or the Washington Post. Or turn on your telley and watch what goes for news.