by Joe Mahoney
Exhibiting a charming naïveté, Jacques reasoned that there simply had to be more to life than this, and continued to wait patiently until time, sheer chance, and an abundance of tentacles resulted in one of Jacques’ tentacles hitting the release button for the restraints, and an instant later Jacques was free. Free to slither out of the filthy chamber into a world that most sentient beings would consider a world of unspeakable horror, but that to Jacques was simply a welcome set of new experiences.
Jacques encountered its first dead Necronian a mere slither from where the chamber had destroyed several local structures. Rendered visible by a sliver of pale moonlight, a single bloated cadaver lay half submerged in a watery thoroughfare. Like the rest of the dead Necronians Jacques would soon discover, it was in an advanced state of decay.
Jacques found death just about everywhere it swam and slithered in what proved to be a vast, aquatic, and utterly lifeless city. Grisly indications of what must once have been a thriving metropolis inhabited almost every building and water course. Bloated carcasses littered the muddy swamps interspersed throughout the city while others fed the vegetation springing up everywhere.
Jacques didn’t even know enough to be horrified. To it, the dead Necronians were little more than a curiosity. In fact, Jacques existed in a kind of paradise during this time. It had plenty to eat and nothing to compete with for resources—nothing at all, no sentient life of any kind aside from vegetation and trillions of particularly hardy bacteria, few of which posed a threat to Jacques.
But as time passed and Jacques explored the city further, the sheer scale of death and decay began to penetrate even Jacques’ thick hide, and it began to dawn on Jacques that perhaps something was wrong here, maybe even terribly so. With this realization Jacques’ latent curiosity asserted itself, and it began to wonder what had killed everything—and what, if anything, it had to do with Jacques.
Stimulated by these questions, Jacques began to make use of its a priori knowledge, and once intellectually active it was impossible for Jacques not to notice how much knowledge the city itself had to offer. Vast archives of data stored in readily accessible formats. Intriguing technology just begging to be reverse engineered. Jacques had an awful lot to learn and nothing but time to learn it.
The answers to countless questions were all there once Jacques knew where to look. Many weren’t even particularly complicated. For instance, it took Jacques less than a decade of sifting through the city’s various databanks to unearth the tragic tale of the Necronians and the T’Klee.
Two planets, two civilizations. Profoundly different in appearance and temperament. One clean and fastidious, the other filthy and squalid. One rash and impetuous, the other thoughtful and contemplative. Both intrigued to learn of the other’s existence.
Perhaps together they could be better, stronger—or at least, so some of their more enlightened minds thought. But it was an uneasy alliance, one that probably would not have been possible had they not been technologically on par—one would have quickly subjugated the other and that would have been the end of it.
When a joint archaeological expedition to a long dead planet unearthed an ancient artifact promising to yield seemingly limitless knowledge, it posed a problem. Whoever controlled such an artifact could potentially gain the upper hand. Such a proposition was intolerable. The artifact would have to be shared, and whatever knowledge gleaned from it doled out sparingly, equitably. Both sides agreed that this was absolutely imperative.
So it did not go over particularly well when it went missing.
Accusations flew. Tensions increased. Petty gestures by both sides made it all worse. Misunderstandings eroded what little trust remained. Long simmering disputes exploded out of all proportion. Cooler heads did not prevail, and before they knew it, the two civilizations found themselves staring into the abyss.
Jacques never did figure out who struck the first blow. It didn’t matter. Blows were dealt and battles fought and a war waged until two particularly savage bits of business put an end to the whole sorry affair—when the Necronians transformed much of the T’Klee’s pastoral planet of fresh breezes and breath-taking vistas into a slab of molten rock, and the T’Klee retaliated by murdering the entire Necronian race all at once.
Though that last part was a bit of an assumption on Jacques’ part.
Years of searching unearthed no direct evidence implicating the T’Klee in the genocide of the Necronians. Nor did the exact manner of the Necronians’ death ever become clear. Jacques spent years conducting sophisticated tests attempting to figure it out but came up empty. The mysterious nature of the deaths suggested that the alien artifact itself might have had something to do with it, providing the T’Klee with some kind of biological weapon, perhaps.
Jacques did not exactly mourn the Necronians, never having known them, but it did feel a kinship to them. From pictures and other relics Jacques knew that it shared a strong physical resemblance to the Necronians. Tests on remains confirmed that Jacques and the Necronians were biologically related, though the tests shed little light on the exact nature of their relationship. They were similar but not the same. For instance, it was pretty clear that Jacques’ telepathic prowess far exceeded that of an average Necronian’s, and unlike Jacques, the Necronian race did not share a single consciousness. Curiously, there was no record of anything quite like Jacques on the planet prior to Jacques’ arrival. Whatever Jacques was, it was new. Still, despite all the unanswered questions, Jacques could not help but feel a lineal duty toward the Necronians.
Sometimes, in its more fanciful moments, Jacques wondered if its existence might be the product of some last, desperate attempt by the doomed Necronians to preserve their species. The idea made it feel especially lonely. Loneliness was an emotion that had plagued Jacques since its first moment of awareness, though it had taken many years to recognize it for what it was. In the course of studying Necronian culture Jacques had come to understand that it wasn’t normal to be completely alone all the time. In fact, Jacques had been surprised to learn, its predicament could even be considered something of a tragedy.
Early on there had been some hope of remedying this. After discovering late one afternoon (to Jacques’ considerable astonishment) that it was capable of reproducing asexually, Jacques took to the process in earnest, hoping that its offspring might become companions. Unfortunately, instead of producing conventional offspring, Jacques only produced more of itself, for although physically separate, Jacques’ progeny remained inextricably linked to Jacques mentally. Those that wandered beyond the telepathic range of the others quickly lost their minds. Jacques destroyed most of them. The exceedingly rare few capable of surviving on their own with their sanity intact Jacques invariably found horrifying, so it usually destroyed them too.
There would be no companions for Jacques.
Still, inhabiting multiple bodies did have its advantages. The more of Jacques there was the more ground Jacques could cover, both literally and figuratively. In time, Jacques came to number in the tens of thousands, and developed technology capable of extending its telepathic range across the entire world, making it possible for Jacques to be almost everywhere on the planet at once. Jacques made the most of this, using parts of itself to explore the planet from the highest mountain to the deepest sea while using other parts of itself to catch up to its forebears technologically. Yet other fragments broke new ground in several different scientific fields, and a small but significant portion made great strides in the arts, from which all of Jacques derived comfort, and which Jacques credited for preserving its sanity.
Time passed. Jacques finally mastered certain critical technologies that made it possible to see what else the universe had to offer. It decided to find a certain artifact, and explore the possibility of exacting retribution.
XXV
A Murderous Tenacity
I could not kill Jacques. Despite what Jacques w
as doing to the current generation of T’Klee, it had not been responsible for shattering the original T’Klee civilization. That dubious distinction belonged to the enigmatic race that had spawned Jacques. Did the rest of Jacques’ crimes warrant its death? Perhaps. But not at my hands. This was all there was to Jacques. Once there had been another race that resembled Jacques, but now there was only Jacques. Killing it would be genocide.
I released my hold on Jacques’ consciousness. Instantly I found myself whisked back to the pool of goo, which remained shrouded in mist beneath a cloudless sky. Within the pool, Akasha and Jacques remained at an impasse, all eight of Akasha’s arms entwined in Jacques’ eight tentacles, both striving to prevent each other from reaching the wand.
I stepped back.
“That was an appalling breach of privacy,” Jacques said, “for which I may never forgive you.”
The Necronian sounded genuinely angry. I might have been afraid had it not been for the distraction provided by Jacques’ own memories, for the Necronian’s many adventures were still fresh in my mind. All the dead ends and wild goose chases since leaving its home. The long stretches where nothing much had happened. The chance encounters with T’Klee and other races that had revealed nothing. Other encounters that had propelled Jacques forward with their infinitesimal clues, until the day that Jacques learned of the existence of an obscure planet in the middle of nowhere and the small splinter of T’Klee who inhabited it, where Jacques had reason to believe it might finally find what it was looking for.
All these memories and more flitted through my mind, illuminating Jacques’ motivations, helping me understand Jacques’ actions.
“You understand less and less,” Jacques observed.
Jacques was right. Even as I approached understanding the memories were fading. My finite human brain could not possibly retain all the uncompressed content of Jacques’ cumulative consciousness. I remembered less with each passing second. I clung to as many memories as I could, trying to prevent them all from fading away, needing them for the perspective they provided, without which I might not know what to do next.
“I’m not going to be able to hold on much longer, Barnabus,” Akasha said.
Akasha. Without a doubt the artifact that had been unearthed on the long dead planet, and that had started it all. That Jacques had spent hundreds of years trying to find, presumably to even the score.
“Did you used to belong to the T’Klee?” I asked.
“I belong to everyone,” Akasha replied.
“Did you have anything to do with the extermination of the Necronians?”
“The Necronians were exterminated because of me.”
A guttural sound emerged from Jacques. It almost broke free of Akasha’s embrace.
One final damning question. “Did the T’Klee use you to exterminate the Necronians?”
“Yes.”
I would have been flabbergasted, had I not anticipated this response. As it was I was supremely disappointed. I had liked this being who sounded like my sister. I did not like her any more.
“Why in blazes would you let them do that?” I asked.
“What should I have done?”
“You should have refused to let them! You should have stopped them!”
“I counsel. I cajole. I empower. I do not refuse.”
“Maybe you don’t understand,” I said, though I did not see how that could be. “We’re talking about an entire civilization here. Wiped out. Millions—”
“Billions,” Jacques interjected.
“—billions of living, thinking, breathing beings”—beings that personally I found physically repulsive, a fact that in no way altered my opinion of the event as a tragedy of the highest order—“are dead, because of you! Does that mean nothing to you?”
“It means data to me.”
“You are blind to suffering.”
“Not at all. I record as much of it as I can.”
How does one respond to such a breath-taking lack of empathy?
“You’re a weapon,” I concluded.
“The most dangerous weapon the universe has ever seen,” Jacques added.
“The universe has seen a lot of weapons,” Akasha said. “I’d tell you about some of them but you’d never sleep soundly again. No, Barnabus, I’m not a weapon. I’m a collection of knowledge. A tiny portion of which has to do with weapons.”
“If you allow yourself to be used as a weapon, then you’re a weapon,” Jacques pointed out.
“I’m much more than a mere weapon,” Akasha said. “I have been called Knowledge Incarnate. I’m gathering knowledge even as we speak. Through this conversation. Through your senses. Telepathically. By any means possible. You’re a teacher, Barnabus. I know you understand the value of knowledge.”
“Of course,” I said. “You’d be an excellent resource in the classroom. But you’re not in a classroom. You’re here, wherever here is, allowing people use you to wipe out entire civilizations.”
“And you think that makes me evil,” Akasha said. “But you’re wrong. I’m neither good nor evil. I just am.”
“Am what?”
“Are what,” Akasha corrected.
“Am what?” I repeated stubbornly.
“Neither good nor evil.”
“I got that. I meant that if you’re not a weapon, then what are you? Other than a bit full of yourself.”
“I told you. I’m knowledge. Knowledge In—”
“Yes, yes, Knowledge Incarnate. Could you sound any more pompous?”
“I sound pompous to you?”
“As Knowledge Incarnate I would think you would know whether or not you sound pompous.”
Knowledge Incarnate stared at me blankly.
“Okay look,” I said. “What do you do with all this knowledge you represent? When you’re not busy wiping out civilizations.”
“I do not wipe out civilizations. They wipe themselves out. I share my knowledge.”
“With who?”
“Whom,” Jacques corrected.
I glowered at Jacques. “With whom?”
“Anyone,” Akasha said. “Everyone.”
“Everyone but Jacques,” I observed.
“The Necronian wants more than I’m prepared to give. But I can give it to you, Barnabus. Imagine what you could accomplish with thousands of years of knowledge culled from some of the most advanced civilizations in the universe. I am yours for the taking.”
“Just think of the possibilities,” Jacques said. “You could enslave your fellow fragments, eliminating the ones you don’t like.”
I ignored the Necronian’s sarcasm. At least, I thought it was sarcasm.
“You could cure every disease known to mankind,” Akasha suggested. “Or eradicate poverty. Or completely overhaul the Earth’s technological infrastructure. I can see that you’re tempted.”
“Of course I’m tempted. Who wouldn’t be?”
“Don’t be a fool,” Jacques said. “Even you, with your staggering intellectual limitations, know the archive is lying. It will not deliver on its promises. The archive does not give. It takes. Help me destroy it before it takes anymore.”
“I’m a teacher,” I said. “You can’t ask me to destroy knowledge.”
“Whom will you teach when all your people are dead?”
The Necronian had a point. I almost said touché. “You have no intention of destroying the archive,” I accused Jacques, as the thought occurred to me. “If you did, you would have killed me the instant you became aware of my existence.”
“I never had any intention of killing you,” Jacques said.
“Why not?”
“Because I like you.”
“Really?”
“Of course not. It was not in my best interest to hurt you.”
“Why not?�
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“Because I need you.”
“What for?”
“You’ll see.”
I didn’t believe that for a second. “Jack told me you didn’t want to hurt me because you were afraid of damaging the archive.”
“The fragment has no insight into my plans. It is not a part of me and never will be.”
Too bad. Jack I might have believed. Jacques or Akasha were too powerful. I couldn’t trust either of them. They could have told me anything, made me believe anything in this crazy, gooey, made-up place.
“Think what you will,” Jacques said, “but the archive is already responsible for the destruction of at least one civilization—a civilization I would have liked to have known. I intend to stop it before it destroys another. Maybe one you’re intimately familiar with.”
There was no denying that Akasha had been party to evil far beyond anything that Jacques had. She had admitted as much. But she hadn’t killed the Necronians; the T’Klee had. They were the guilty party. The T’Klee had simply used Akasha, like someone firing a gun. Still, did that exonerate Akasha? She had provided the means. She could have refused. Which meant that she was complicit. Right?
Try as I might I could not decide whose side to take. Did it even matter? What could an insignificant fragment like me do anyway?
To heck with it, I thought.
I lunged forward across the goo.
“Barnabas, wait—” Akasha began.
But there was nothing the archive could do to stop me without releasing Jacques first.
I bit her as hard as I could in the nearest arm.
I’m not sure what I hoped to accomplish. It was an impulse move borne of pent up frustration—a response, perhaps, to the sense of betrayal I felt for what she’d let happen to the Necronians and the T’Klee and to Jacques and me. Whatever the reason, as a physical assault the move left a great deal to be desired. It was like chomping down on a steel pipe. I didn’t even break her skin.