by Paul Grover
“We need to go out there. Monica, I want you to stay onboard with Shannon. Rich, Tish, Alex and Z will accompany me. Alex will you carry the cube?"
“Sure.”
“Z, this is a rescue mission first; then we see what we can do with the cube and your people. Clear?” Mira asked.
“Clear. I understand. We find your human first, then we attend to my Pharn. It is the correct priority.”
Mira explained the environmental conditions they had scanned.
“We have cold weather gear in the hold and a squad support pack.” Barnes said.
“Shannon can you kit Zenia out? Monica, Alex will show you how to monitor us from the sharp end.”
Monica turned to leave, paused and picked up the last of the brandy.
One by one they left, leaving only Tish. Tish put her hand to the silver sword pendant she wore around her neck, twirling it between her fingers. She leant on the bulkhead, her booted foot resting against the steel wall. It took Mira back to their first meeting.
“I meant it Tish. I won’t take any more chances.”
“A promise is a promise,” Tish whispered.
Mira took Tish’s hands and kissed her. She tried to shake knot of dread forming in the pit of her stomach.
The hatch opened and the ramp extended into the gloom of the alien facility. Mira stepped out into the cold, dry air. It was odourless and sterile. Monica hung back in the corridor; her arms crossed over her chest; she was shivering.
“When we leave, shut the door and do not open it for anyone but us and only if we use the passphrase,” Mira instructed. Alex had suggested using a password for added security. If the Pharn could create bodies at will, they might replicate the crew. It was unlikely but they were in an alien environment and it paid to prepare.
“Let’s go,” Mira said.
They were in a large hemispherical chamber. The walls and ceiling were veiled in shadow. Mira could just make out structural ribs defining the chamber’s shape. She knelt and touched the floor; it was cold but not as cold as the air. The material was textured, comprising thousands of woven fibres. It was a smaller version of what the sensors on the Chance had detected. She was in no doubt the structure had been built from the same technology that had corrupted the Sagan and the Torrence.
Mira stood and pulled her collar up. Barnes walked with his jacket undone, an unlit cigar in his mouth and a faint sheen of perspiration on his skin. He picked up on Mira’s gaze and tipped a salute; Rich Barnes was both the ultimate soldier and one of the kindest souls she had ever met, a true contradiction.
Tish walked next to Mira, Zenia and Alex behind and Barnes bringing up the rear.
“Damn it’s cold,” Alex said.
“Cold? You don’t know cold Mr Kite. Cold is sleeping in an air tent on the Cydonian plain for five straight nights. Cold is mountain training on Titan. Cold is…” Barnes replied.
“The norm in the Corps, yeah I get it. I like warm; that’s why I joined the fucking Navy.”
Barnes grinned and rolled his cigar between his teeth.
“He sounds like you, Mira.”
It was a fair point.
Tish put her hand on Mira’s arm. “Did you hear that?”
Mira listened. “No, what is it, Tish?”
"There is no echo. Look how big this space is. The walls and floor are hard. There should be an echo.”
Barnes removed his cigar and tucked it in a pocket.
“Rich?” Mira asked,
“Hello!” he boomed.
His voice sounded flat and dead. There was no echo or no natural ambient sound. The chamber was acoustically neutral.
“It’s weird… I don’t know what they could gain from it… perhaps it’s a property of this material,” Tish said casting her gaze around the chamber.
Mira led them on.
“So, Z, why is this called a Mothernode?” Mira said.
Zenia regarded her with cold shark-like eyes. “It is complicated… This is our home system. This is where we began.”
“Not Arethon?” Mira asked.
“Arethon was our adopted home; the capital world of our realm. It is here where life began,” Zenia said. There was awe and sadness in her voice.
“And now it is an energy harvester and a prison,” Mira said.
Zenia gave her peculiar smile. “It is more. It is an interface between physical and post physical. This is where our consciousness can transfer into a constructed body.”
“You’re remade here if you die? Your resurrection machine?” Mira asked.
“A curious term, not entirely accurate, but close enough to be applicable. The purpose of facilities like this are to provide a portal to our post physical existence and path to physicality if needed. Our states are both individual and plural.”
“And your collective is not linked to this place?” Mira asked.
“When we destroy the Blackened, they will connect. I will rejoin them and we will join those who have gone before.”
“I thought you wanted physical form, that’s why you bonded with Mira?” Tish asked.
Zenia made a face Mira equated to a frown. A sadness haunted her black eyes. She wondered if she were applying human emotion to this being… but then again Zenia exhibited so many human qualities.
“It is hard for me. I cannot exist as Pharn. I cannot exist as human. In this form I am lonely, cut off from my kind.”
Mira understood. She had sensed it when she connected with the Ark, the feeling of oneness.
“So what happens to your people if you do not connect them?” Mira asked.
“They will cease to be. They only can sustain themselves on Arethon’s energy for a short period,” she replied, her voice heavy with responsibility and coloured with sadness. It wasn’t the first time Mira had heard emotion in Zenia’s voice but it was unusual and underlined the dichotomy of her being. At times Zenia appeared human, at other times she was totally alien. It was as if the two sides of her nature were struggling for dominance. Zenia was battling to forge her identity.
“So you are using us?” Tish snapped. “Mira, we can’t trust her. Her allegiance is to them, not us.”
“It is not about trust; it is mutual benefit. Destroying this facility destroys the Blackened. Your war will not happen. When you purge the Blackened, my people will reconnect. Your lack of trust is unfounded. Your species will gain as will my own.”
Tish stared at Zenia. There was hostility in her eyes. It wasn’t hate; Mira was sure that was an emotion Tish was incapable of. Mira read the distrust, suspicion and uncertainty behind Tish’s gaze.
She gestured for the rest of the group to continue.
“If it’s any consolation, I’m not keen on her either,” Mira whispered.
Tish glanced around the chamber. Nervous energy animated her face.
“She’s holding back on something. I can sense it. She is making us dance to her tune. She is playing us and we are falling for it.”
Everything had been too convenient, too easy. Maybe she was just being suspicious but doubt lingered in Mira’s mind.
“Tish… I think there is something bigger going on… releasing them from the Ark was the first step. The Pharn created Zenia and the cube so we would come here and destroy the Blackened. I guess us succeeding would offer the Pharn still out there some security, even the chance to return,” Mira said.
“What about humans if they come back?” Tish asked. “I like being a human. I don’t want to be like them.”
Mira took Tish’s hand and squeezed it. “We’ll work it out; in the meantime we should cut Z some slack. She is having difficulty interacting with humans. I guess we of all people should understand.”
Tish relaxed. “Speak for yourself, weirdo. I’m well adjusted. Come on, I don’t want to get separated from the firepower.”
Mira checked her datapad. “The signal is just ahead of us. Let’s go.”
“Race you,” Tish said, breaking into a run.
Mira
followed. The oppressive atmosphere of the tunnel lifted, if only for a few seconds.
When Mira and Tish caught up with the group, they were standing around a life pod of human manufacture. The lifeboat was cylindrical, three metres in diameter, six in length. The detached propulsion system lay further up the tunnel. It had separated on impact, to minimise the risk of frying the pod’s occupants in an explosion of unburnt fuel.
The canopy was open. Empty water bottles and food sachets littered the floor. Discarded bedding was balled to one side.
“Someone was here. They left a while ago,” Barnes was saying. “The supply cache is empty. They took what they could with them.”
Scuff marks on the sides of the tunnel and black marks on the lifeboat hinted at a rough landing. Mira noticed dried blood on the lip of the pod.
Surviving in the cold of the chamber would have been uncomfortable but the pod would have offered shelter. She wondered what had prompted Lopez to leave.
A blinking red light on the deck caught Mira’s eye. She knelt and picked up a small recorder; the sort used in business meetings.
She hit play.
A woman appeared on the screen. Her face was drawn, her eyes purple indentations. The background was dark, lights flickering. Mira recognised it as the flight deck on the Torrence.
The woman sobbed and composed herself.
She spoke in Spanish for several minutes then swapped to standard English.
“Hey baby… things are tough for me at work right now. I don’t know if I will be back in time for your birthday, maybe not even Christmas; I’ll try honey, I’ll try so hard…” She mumbled something indistinguishable and wiped a tear from her eye. “You are such a good girl, Esmae. Mummy loves you so much. I’m so sorry.” The woman choked on sobs and the screen went black.
Mira turned off the recorder and slipped it into her pocket.
No one said anything for several seconds.
“Z, where would she go? Is there anything else to this facility or is it just a maze of tunnels?”
Zenia’s cold black eyes glinted in the half light.
“This is an entry lock. The habitation zone will be ahead of us. There will be a control centre, known as the Spire. The Mothernode’s facilities will be at our command.”
“What about Rosa?” Tish said. “Mira, Rosa comes first.”
“Tish is right Z, she has been here a long time and might be hurt. We investigate first and then we move on.”
“As you wish. The Spire will offer the best chance of finding her.”
They continued forward for half a kilometre. Corridor was not the best term for the structure; it was cavernous with a high arched ceiling lit by soft blue light panels.
“I have a question,” Tish said looking at Zenia.
“Ask,” Zenia replied.
“The Blackened who are trapped here, why did they not break out? The crust of the node is thin.”
“They cannot reach the inner edge of the sphere. It is protected by a membrane of null space, a buffer zone where normal physics do not apply. I cannot explain it to you in any other way… It is complex.”
Tish frowned, unsatisfied by the response. Mira winked at her. It had been a good question.
The cavern widened. The light was peculiar; shadows danced over the walls of the chamber.
Barnes stopped as he crested a rise. “Check this out!”
The ridge overlooked a wide plain. Their path was blocked by a forest of black tendrils. They sprouted from the ground and rose high into the air. They had the same quality as the roots on the Sagan; yet these danced in semi random movements. They resembled trees in a gale or seaweed in a riptide.
Zenia walked past her, her eyes wide and full of wonder.
“What are they?” Mira asked. The fronds rustled as they rubbed against each other.
Zenia replied. “They prevent incursion by foreign objects; they protect the environment from infection.”
“Like in microbiology…” Mira whispered.
“The Cillia,” Tish said. “Latin for an eyelash. They protect cells from damage.” A blush coloured the girl’s cheeks. “I read a lot of books,” she added with a shrug.
Mira walked toward the fronds, one hand outstretched.
“No!” Zenia yelled.
Before Mira could stop the closest of the fibres retracted whip-like into the ground. She took another step and more retracted. The movement was swift and silent.
Mira had once dived on a coral reef and these fibres reminded her of the exotic fronds that would dart back into calcium shells when she brushed against them.
“They seem happy for us to pass,” she said.
One by one they entered the forest. It was dense and dark. Barnes activated his shoulder lamp, and the others followed suit. Mira estimated they had been walking for around 100 metres when she saw the first hints of light spilling through the fibres. The last layer retracted, and she blinked as warm light fell on her face.
Mira stepped out into a city of black towers, giant skyscrapers reaching far above them. The city was lit by an overhead light source, lost somewhere in the haze above her. It was warm and bright. The air was fresh, almost spring like.
In the distance a gold tower rose high above the others, its pinnacle concealed by soft glow of the light strip.
“The Spire?” Mira asked.
“Yes, it is the control point for this facility,” Zenia replied, her gaze lingering on the tall structure.
This city was different to the one on Arethon. Those towers had been designed as part of a machine, while these had windows and balconies. It looked like a city in the Core Systems. Open areas resembling parks lay between the towers. Brown bare soil was dusted with a green hue, hinting at fresh plant growth.
This city was designed for organic life and reminded Mira of the city in her dreams.
“Lopez could be anywhere,” Alex said. “If she even came through the forest.”
The fronds had closed behind them. For her own reassurance Mira walked toward them and breathed a sigh of relief as they retracted.
“Zenia… what is this place. It looks the like city I dreamt of.” Mira blushed, all too aware of how it sounded.
“It is similar. It is Pharn. This place lies between two worlds, physical and non-physical. Organic life comes here to join the collective. Sometimes the collective downloads to physical form. It is our anchor to the physical and our gateway to the gestalt.”
Although the city was similar in construction and layout to a human city, the scale was different. The windows and doors were taller and thinner. Some were much larger, others smaller. She remembered how the Amy Construct had told her the Pharn used bespoke bodies; she assumed it was the reason for the variations.
“We should head for the Spire. If I were Rosa that’s the way I would go,” Alex said.
They moved through the streets, eventually arriving in a wide boulevard. It led to a plaza with a fountain spraying water high into the air. The city shed its taut, claustrophobic atmosphere.
“Why would Rosa leave the safety of the ship?” Mira asked.
“Something made her?” Barnes replied. “Maybe she encountered some kind of hostile life?”
“We’ve not seen a living thing since we got here, Gunny,” Alex said. “Unless they took her somewhere and have not returned."
“This place seems dead,” Mira replied.
“Maybe she ran out of water? There were empty bottles at the pod,” Tish said. She paused in thought.
“Why is the fountain operating? Why is the city lit?” she asked.
Zenia regarded Tish with dark eyes as if silently mocking this mere human for asking her the question.
“Your human, the systems governing the node must have recognised her as organic. It is programmed to meet the needs of organics under its care.”
“Which is why it let us in. Why did you tell Mira to stop when she approached the forest things?”
“The forest is coate
d with a molecular acid capable of dissolving organic material. The node must be familiar with humans for it to react as it did.”
Mira moved the discussion in a more practical direction. “Rich, can you send up a drone?”
Barnes knelt and slipped off his pack. He removed a palm sized surveillance drone. It had four anti-grav motors at each corner and a high definition holo-cam hung beneath it. Barnes linked it to a datapad and the remote aircraft rose into the air.
“Going up,” Barnes bellowed. There was no echo.
Mira peered over his shoulder.
“You’re in a good mood,” Barnes said.
“You know how it is, Rich. I’ve been blown up, shot, thrown in a cell and called the spawn of demons. What the fuck else can go wrong?”
Barnes guided the drone upward. He compensated for turbulence between the towers with micro-adjustments to the climbing speed. Mira thought about her old JetSuit.
I wonder if Shannon would fly with me? It was a random thought, a distraction.
Mira opened a link to the ship.
There was no carrier wave, nothing aside from the pop and crackle of background radiation.
“We have lost contact with the Chance…” Mira said.
“The forest is disrupting your communications. It is not intentional. It is a consequence of how the facility operates.” Zenia said.
Mira unzipped her jacket.
“Is it me or is it getting warmer?”
“Mira!” Barnes called. “Check this out!”
The drone was tracking up one tower.
“He looks familiar,” Barnes said.
A creature with multi-articulated limbs deftly scurried across the vertical side of a tower. It stopped, anchoring itself to the surface with its hind legs before using its multiple forearms to effect a repair. Its head swivelled to track the drone as it rose past it.
“One of the creatures from Arethon…” Mira whispered. She knew the insectile creatures had been active within the machine but had seen only dead ones.
“It will not harm us unless it or the facility is threatened,” Zenia said.
“Are you sure about that?” Tish asked.