Tyger Bright

by T. C. McCarthy

  “That’s what these morons did?” the captain asked. “Destroyed themselves by working with super-awares?”

  “We don’t know that for sure. But yes.”

  The promise of combat succeeded in calming Win where the mantras had failed; it woke bundles of neurons that began firing in succession, slowing his heart and reducing his stream of consciousness to a series of calculations. This is the way of war; reality is inconstant. Peace becomes fear, and fear becomes anger. Anger gives birth to conflict, conflict to death. The thing comes to us, and here is where we will meet it. He judged from the vibrations it was close, beyond the bulkhead in front of them at the end of a long corridor. Win aimed his carbine. The weapon sent an image onto his heads-up and superimposed it with a green targeting circle and range.

  “It comes,” said Win.

  The bulkhead ripped open as if the metal was thin aluminum foil, and the thing used two tentacle arms and claws to bend the wall further outward toward Win, pounding it wider until able to squeeze through. Win and the Marine fired. Their fléchettes sparked upon hitting its carapace, but other than that had no effect. It pushed farther into their corridor, the space so narrow that the creature had to inch its way forward, tearing off the passageway’s resin and plastic sheathing and ripping at the pipe galleries to make way.

  “Stop that thing!” the captain radioed. “It’s tearing apart systems we still need.”

  Zhelnikov said, “You have to, Win; we’re dead if you don’t. The Higgins is almost clear of the battle and from there it’s open space.”

  “There’s another option,” someone else said. “Officers’ quarters are escape pods, with two years’ worth of power for cryo systems. We can zip up and eject; hope for the best.”

  “No.” Win switched magazines when his first one emptied. “The odds of being picked up this far out, even if our pods left Sommen space, are essentially zero. We have to fight.”

  By now the thing had gotten close enough that its arms were in range, and the Marine captain dodged when it swung for him, a massive fist smashing through the wall near his head. Win launched himself forward. He dropped the carbine to float away, and wedged himself near the creature’s front section, pounding on its carapace with spiked servo-harness legs. He hoped the captain would stop shooting; there was no room now and even Win’s servo harness wasn’t sufficiently armored to stop fléchettes. Win felt his legs twist; he screamed with pain when the thing grabbed hold and dragged him away, swinging him like a bag to impact against the wall. The second time it swung him, Win’s vision blurred. He waited for the third time but it never came, his body released to drift away instead of smashing into a wall.

  Win shook his head, trying to clear it. One of the thing’s arms waved gently to send vibrations through the deck, but the tremors weakened with each second, eventually disappearing.

  Win exhaled, releasing the tension stored in his muscles. “It’s dead.”

  “What happened?” the captain asked.

  “Power. It ran out of power. The Sommen damaged it so extensively that it couldn’t continue functioning.”

  “You sure it’s dead?”

  “Yes.” Win switched onto Zhelnikov’s private channel. “We accomplished one mission, anyway, old man.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Now we have ancient technology that we can bring back to your friends at Fleet. Why not turn back?”

  “We keep going; my orders are to prevent the Proelians from acquiring the same technology.”

  Win didn’t respond at first; he leaned forward and pressed his gloved hand against the alien carapace, stroking it to find a surface smooth and nearly frictionless.

  “I’ll help with repairs. We need to do well enough that the Higgins can at least pull some maneuvers.”

  “We don’t need you to help with repairs, Win; we need you to find the Proelians. By now they could be in any one of thirty abandoned Sommen systems and we are close to the end. Not much longer: two shots from our plasma weapon. As soon as the Proelian ships are gone, we can return home and retake control of Fleet.”

  “I don’t know if I can repeat my previous success in getting their coordinates, but it is possible. Know one thing, Zhelnikov: There is no assurance that you will win one day, even if you make it back. Those frescos you showed me and the emptiness of the space we now occupy . . .” Win’s voice trailed off.

  “What?” Zhelnikov asked. “Finish your point.”

  “You can’t see, can you? All around us we choose actions but always within the confines of fate, inside a story that has been written already. The frescos, the Proelian and Sommen prophecies—none of them can exist except in a history book with ink dry on its pages.”

  And, Win thought, I do not see myself. Not on a single one of the book’s sheets.

  “Zhelnikov,” said Win.

  “What?”

  “There never was any poison. Was there?”

  “No, Win. But you were losing control of yourself and we had to convince you there was.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Pursuit of power is justified insomuch as it is not the end, but a rest stop on the way toward a goal, one which furthers the reach of our Proelian Church. It is written. That we teach regarding free will and choice is accurate within a certain context and it is this context that defines our position in the universe: All is written. Every second of time has already passed, has already played out in the mind of the Creator. This implies that the future is already as certain as the past, and the present is the vibrating molecule in the eye of an insect locked in amber. Remain on this point. You have free will—this was not a lie. But free will behaves as physics does, at a quantum scale, where it appears as though the rules differ from those that govern the planets. A planet’s orbit is fixed. But anything can happen at the quantum scale on those planets, a seemingly random dance of subatomic particles. And that is free will.

  San felt her skin tingle as she watched the memory. The abbess sat wearing a clean white habit, her skin free of lines and signs of care. This was the old abbess. It was her as a young woman, full of energy and the glow of someone who believed.

  And that is what you must remember: Power, as an end in itself, is a dead end. Any exercise of free will in opposition to the Church prophecies is not just a waste of time; it’s an affront to His will. It is an abomination.

  You found this memory. It was designed not to surface on its own, but to only appear to those who seek it, and all of it is true.

  The scene shifted from the inside of a cathedral to a countryside, lush with trees and tall grass over which a hard rain fell. But the people, she thought. This was an ancient time. They wore heavy clothes made from unrecognizable fabrics that looked suffocating, and when soaked with water they hung off their wearers’ shoulders with unbearable weight; a forest of black umbrellas did nothing to stop the drops from hitting the ground, where water splashed upward to inundate them from the sides. San thought something odd about the vision until it hit her: the people all stared at the same thing, a trio of small children, kneeling at the top of a hill. San zoomed toward them.

  Her consciousness rested adjacent to the smallest child, a short boy whose hair matted to his head in the rain and she wanted to throw a jacket over him to stop the shivering. The boy spoke. San recognized the language but couldn’t place it, guessing that it was either Spanish or Portuguese. The girls nodded at his words, glancing at the crowd with fear. It went on for minutes. Nothing happened. San was about to withdraw from the scene when thunder clapped, loud enough that she felt her body jerk with a start, the image travelling through her thoughts and into her nervous system. Then the whispers started. The voice of a woman made the children’s heads tilt upward simultaneously, all of them looking into the rain with eyes open, oblivious to the downpour.

  “I promised you a sign.”

  The oldest girl nodded and San wondered if she was the only one who heard. Her voice shook. “We have the secre
ts. But we don’t understand them and the Fathers are pushing us to hand them over. People think we are lying.”

  “Do not be afraid. Give my priests the secrets when the time is right. They will lie. But it is not your job to publicly correct them; that is the job of my Father.”

  “How will the truth get out?”

  “You will encounter a true servant of the Church and he will present himself as my servant. To him, provide the true prophecies. All of them. But the last one, the one concerning events about the far future of humanity and the universe—this one is the most important. Do not forget it.”

  “I recall the words,” the girl whispered. “But I do not understand the meaning.”

  “The final battle will come but do not fear; this will be long after your lifetime and even beyond the generations after yours. Our Father has, even now, gathered his holy army that will come from the heavens and help mankind at its hour of need. My children: This future will be one of great fear and distrust. Tell my servants that they will think that those my Father sends to help have been sent to destroy.” Another thunder clap sounded, but the children didn’t move, oblivious to everything except the voice.

  “But they are not your enemies,” the woman’s voice continued. “They are your brothers in faith, and together you will rid creation of the soulless.”

  The scene ended, thrusting San back into the cathedral where she faced the abbess again. This time it was the one she recognized. The woman drew her phase shifter around her shoulders, shivering in a cold that even San thought she felt, the chill of a never-ending winter on a moon so far from the sun that almost no light reached it. The cold penetrated San’s skin and pierced her bones, threatening to bring their molecules to absolute zero, a freezing that stopped time. I am part of a truth greater than reality, greater than all of mankind, San thought. But the strange vision’s whispers echoed in her mind; they stirred and disrupted every belief that she held regarding the Sommen and their threat. Were they a threat at all?

  “That is the prophecy,” the abbess said. Her voice shook with age. “During the Sommen invasion of Earth, when they encountered it within the Proelian archives, they recognized it from their own prophecies, which we now have in their religious texts: The race that finally conquers them will then be the one who stands with them against their greatest enemy—in war at the end of time. We are at this end. Those who face the Sommen in war will have to decide. If we defeat them, will we then eradicate the Sommen from the universe as so many in Fleet want? Or will they become our allies? What we lack is a common foe, but the truth of prophecy has a strange way of unfolding gradually, over time. And time, all time, has already been recorded.”

  San woke from the trance, her undersuit soaked in sweat despite its efforts to circulate coolant and maintain body temperature. She began to sob. The ashram glass permitted the light of a nearby star to illuminate her with a soft blue light, and tiny points marked the system’s planets as they crept by in slow orbits. The Jerusalem and the Bangkok slipped forward in blackness, their blocky and ugly appearance somehow fitting, she thought; space was an ugly place, and only the ugly survived in such a hellscape, those willing to embrace all its horror to reach promise. In a few days they would enter orbit around a planet that the Sommen had named long ago, and she stopped sobbing—actually smiled—when the name rose in her thoughts: Carpenter. Based on its distance from the star, its size, and its water content, the planet should have been a nitrogenous garden spot. But the Bangkok’s initial readings indicated the surface had long ago been converted into a combination of furnace and alkaline desert.

  The sound of the hatch opening came from behind her, followed by a hiss. “What now, Lieutenant?” she asked.

  Something smelled acrid. The ashram was pressurized and San had taken off her helmet for meditations, and she fumbled to secure it again, turning in zero g to get a view of the hatch. San went still. A robot the size of a rat faced her, its structure similar to an ant’s, and it hadn’t come through the hatch but had burned its way through a pressurization duct so that drops of acid gathered in the air, hissing when they contacted a bulkhead or other surface. This is the second time, she thought. Zhelnikov and my brother’s last action—to send another of their servants on an errand, and I am the target once more. The thing clung to the wall and lifted a small arm, the end of which resembled a cluster of sensors that now waved in the air. San guessed it sniffed for some chemical signs of her, looking for stray DNA fragments that would help determine if this was its target at the same time its microbrain ran facial recognition. She had a few seconds—if even that.

  “Lieutenant,” San radioed. “Security threat in the ashram.”

  It launched from the wall. San had been ready and let her mind go, reducing conscious thought so it shrunk out of the way in favor of the training on Ganymede. Her dagger slid from its leg sheath as the thing spat at her; San twisted in midair, dodging a stream of tiny silver needles that made soft clinking noises when they impacted against glass. She and the bot landed on opposite sides of the chamber—San near the hatch, the robot against the far wall, skittering upward on the low bulkhead with magnetic legs. The hatch began to open. But before the Marines could enter, the robot again spat at her, waiting for her to dodge before it jumped from the bulkhead, jetting straight at its target.

  San twisted. Without thinking she jammed the long knife upward to impale its abdomen section, between the thing’s legs so that it scrambled for grip while she rotated the makeshift skewer, forcing the bot to face the glass and preventing it from aiming. With one stroke, she flipped it and slammed downward; the thing waved its legs, pinned to the metal floor at the tip of her knife.

  The lieutenant flew from the hatch; with one foot he secured himself to floor straps, the other one stomping its boot in explosions of sparks until the bot stopped moving.

  “One of these days,” he said, panting, “those guys are going to succeed in getting to you. A stalker bot. They probably sent this thing when we last engaged the Higgins; it’s been tracking you for some time, evading ship’s systems.”

  “Today was not Zhelnikov’s day.”

  “Are you okay, San?”

  “I am alive, Lieutenant. And we are closing on a Sommen system, hopefully one that has the secrets we came for.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we go home. We will learn what, if anything, has changed on Earth and Mars during our years of absence.”

  The lieutenant scooped up the remains of the robot, placing them in a satchel that another Marine brought into the room. He handed the bag over. He said something else to San, but Wilson had reached out to her, and the lieutenant’s words never registered.

  I heard you found another bot, he sent.

  It failed.

  I figured but I’m worried. I see nothing on the planet ahead of us; there is a haze that blocks our vision, a pall over the place as if everything is screaming to stay away.

  I know, she sent. I see that too. We still have to go.

  Zhelnikov and his men may have survived, San. I can feel it. They will find us and we will have to face them.

  What are you scared of?

  That they will finally succeed in killing you.

  We destroyed their ship, Wilson; your feelings are just that—not fact. Even if they survived, the damage was so extensive that they may be adrift in space. Forever.

  I sensed your brother, San. A few moments ago, when you were attacked.

  And?

  Wilson’s thoughts carried with them a sense of dread. They come.

  When we get to the surface, we’ll be ready, Wilson. Nothing can change what is already written; we will follow the plan I devised and, if they come, they die.

  Listen. Wilson paused, his message interrupted by what San sensed as doubt. When he continued, she felt his resolve. You aren’t going to the planet’s surface. I consulted with the abbess. We need you here.

  How dare you! San sent a wave of rage. The
captains command the ships but I am the mission leader; the abbess is not here.

  It is done, San. She agrees. You are the mission leader and that’s precisely why you can’t go; if we lose you on the planet we’ve lost not just a navigator, but also the one person holding everything together; we almost both got killed gathering water. I’m sorry, but this isn’t just the abbess’s order; it’s the bishop’s as well.

  We will see about that.

  Good, Wilson sent. The abbess waits for your immediate contact.

  San sped from the ashram, ignoring the Marine’s shouts to wait, instead jetting amongst tight passageways and then through the hatch leading to the tomb where she stripped. Her belongings twisted in midair while she dove in and waited for the metal slabs to sandwich her. She could have done this from the ashram, San thought. But the tomb and its connection to the entire ship amplified her sensitivity, making everything more sharp, the messages clear.

  The abbess knew you’d be contacting her, someone sent. She wishes for me to tell you that her decision is final.

  I am in charge of this mission; without me on the planet, it could fail.

  Captain Kyarr, the abbess thinks that the planet or Zhelnikov will kill you if you leave the Bangkok; the bishop himself has ordered for you to stay in orbit—to respond if somehow the Higgins arrives; Wilson told of us his sense, that your brother yet lives.

  This could be the breakthrough, San argued. The abbess wants to know if machinist tech can help us in our war; she knows as well as I do that if we don’t defeat the Sommen, then everything she stands for, including the Church, will have been a mistake.

  The other one paused. The abbess doesn’t understand what you mean and requests you elaborate.

  The damn prophecy! The one she concealed in our memories from so long ago when we were first in the tank. I saw it. Tell her that.

  This time the pause persisted; after a while, San wondered if she’d lost her connection. She couldn’t see it, but the gravity well of planet Carpenter inched closer, its bowing of space and time tugging at the strings of her link with the abbess and Ganymede. Jupiter’s small moon had never felt more distant. San imagined that the invisible strings connecting her to it had been stretched taught, their fabric on the verge of ripping.