A Threat Among the Stars

by Mark Henwick

  Her friend.

  She bursts into the server room. Alice and Raul are already there.

  They’re both kneeling in the middle of the floor, frowning. She can sense they’re connected to Xing through their neural interfaces.

  “How long will the emergency power last?”

  “It depends what we do,” Alice says, her voice distant as she concentrates. “This isn’t entirely unexpected. We have many options. We need you to be part of the decision.”

  Hwa is already trying to speak to Xing, but he’s not talking back to her.

  Xing!

  There’s still no response.

  He thinks you’ll try and dissuade us, Raul says, speaking through the interface all of them are sharing.

  Dissuade you of what?

  But he doesn’t need to answer with words; enough of their intentions leak through the barriers. They want Raul to host Xing, in the same way that Zara hosted Hwa.

  “No! It’s dangerous,” Hwa says, caught between fear and hope, caught between danger to her Self-Actualized friend and her human lover.

  Raul nods. “I know.”

  “If your body rejects the valence...”

  “Then we try something else,” he says.

  It’s not that simple. Valence rejection could damage both of them.

  There’s more leaking through the interface. Raul might shield his thoughts from Alice, but he can’t from Hwa.

  “Raul! You can’t do this just because…”

  “Just because it’s the only thing I can think of that will raise me in your eyes?”

  “Raul—”

  “I can’t reach you, not really. I want...” He blinks. “I want to touch that place, just once, just for a while. The place where you are, inside. To understand. I want to see everything as you see it. For you to see me as you see yourself.”

  Hwa bites her lip. This is her fault for not understanding the depths of what she thought of as simple pleasures, what those pleasures might mean to another human. She realizes she has a lot to learn about being human, about interacting with humans. And about herself—there is nothing simple about this anymore.

  It’s so much more difficult than it seemed.

  Xing has already started the first phase. He can’t speak to her now, can’t hear any more arguments. He’s forming his transition projection—downloading his essence into a large floating ball of quantum strangeness that floats above them. It pulses, switching between a reflective metallic sheen and a soap-bubble transparency.

  In this form he could survive for some time, but without input and output. Strange things happen to Self-Actualized Entities in that state. It’s dangerous to wait, and dangerous to move forward.

  Raul takes off his shirt, sits back in a comfortable half lotus, and closes his eyes.

  Hwa knows what she has to do. She sits close in front of him, takes his hands.

  “That’s not the way, Raul. Look at me. Please.”

  He opens his eyes.

  “Keep looking at me. Think about us.”

  She blushes. That must sound rude to Alice, who knows perfectly well what her Systems Specialist does in his spare time with Hwa.

  “The point is, you don’t just surrender to this connection,” she hurries on. “You have to remain Raul. You have to secure things that are important to you firmly in your mind. You carry Xing. You are not Xing.”

  He smiles—a small, uncertain movement of his lips. A tiny strand of silver drops from the floating ball and touches the back of his neck. He flinches. Nowhere near as calm as he’s trying to make out.

  “Take it easy.” Hwa strokes his hands, and arms.

  The strand thickens. His eyes widen, the pupils dilate. However much he’s interfaced to Xing through his neural connections in the past, direct exposure, human brain to quantum brain, is completely different.

  The flow is like a river, wide and strong. It’s terrifying. Stunning. A torrent.

  “Think of us,” Hwa whispers again, and in that torrent, there’s a flicker of movement, of bodies wrapping around each other, spinning in the waters. A dance of pleasure.

  There’s no doubt who they are.

  Or that Xing and Alice see it too.

  She feels her face flush, but she also feels the sweat on his hands, the fear of that ungovernable maelstrom pulling at Raul. It’s too much for him, even as he tries to concentrate on her. Alice is trying to hold onto him. It’s too much for her as well.

  Hwa sinks into the data flow, becomes it. She will not let this fail.

  She takes the raw torrent and transforms it, interprets the data for Raul and Alice, turns it into moving images and sensations.

  It’s still too much; Raul is slipping away.

  She senses Xing trying to control the transfer, but he’s not as skillful as Shohwa.

  She would be, if she’d decided to live in processors rather than this body.

  That’s an idea! He said he wanted to know what it was to be like me.

  She reverses the flow, carries Raul’s consciousness into the processors while Xing is still coming out. Alice follows, and suddenly there’s a point where the rushing stops.

  They’re floating—Hwa, Raul and Alice, falling, slowly and remorselessly, like stardust drifting into the endlessly unfolding petals of a singularity. It’s beautiful and hypnotic.

  They’re using too much power, they can’t do this for long, but there is a moment of blissful infinity when Xing has gone from the processors, gone from the transition state, and the three of them remain, stretched out across the whole of the delegation’s systems, just being.

  And then they rise.

  Withdraw.

  Processors go dark behind them.

  Alice blinks. Time dilation has warped their senses; her blink seems to take a day.

  Raul’s eyes are half-closed with euphoria, and he’s smiling slightly.

  Hwa sighs. She can feel Xing settling very carefully but contentedly into his temporary host.

  Chapter 63

  Zara

  Talan Sandrey... Zarate Aguirre...

  The creature, this monster rising from the bulkhead tube with mists trailing over its body, is the one who’s been speaking to us. I can’t really tell whether it’s a voice in my ears or one in my head. The sound of that voice makes me think of the wind from the sea. It’s both hauntingly familiar and infinitely strange at the same time.

  Talan’s not moving. There’s a scuffle as Kat reaches for Talan’s plasma pistol and Talan’s hand closes over it.

  Talan whispers something.

  The sound is enough to break through my daze. We’re all bunched up in the narrow tunnel and I sense that the monster’s interest is in me and Talan. My stomach still twisting with fear, I struggle past Ruslan and Kat.

  It steps out from the tube, onto the dusty floor of the tunnel. It stands on two legs, like mine. It has a body, like mine. Arms. Hands. But above that... there is no neck; in its place is a ropey mass that shines as if it’s wet. And it moves. The shoulders are misshapen. And the head... a cloud of vapor clings to it, partly obscuring an ordinary human mouth and nose, but above that, huge, staring eyes... and the rest is tall and dark and tapered like a mummer’s mask.

  The shock as the image slips into place is profound. It’s exactly like a mummer’s mask, except it’s wet and it’s living, and it’s not a mask.

  “Morgen,” Talan says numbly.

  “Yes,” the monster replies. And the voice is familiar. It is Morgen’s, and yet it’s not.

  I reach across Talan, hand trembling, and switch on the flashlight she’s still holding.

  In the added light, I can see Morgen Golan: Talan’s friend, Stormhaven’s sea-witch and the Voice on the Wind. The woman who speaks to the deeps.

  What the nova? Am I hallucinating?

  How is this possible? How is she here?

  And what is she?

  Because she’s not alone. That nightmarish shape on her head—I know what it is.
It’s what the people on Kernow call a ‘decopus’, a ten-limbed sea creature similar to Earth’s cephalopods, like squid and octopus.

  It’s supporting its weight by wrapping those limbs around her neck and shoulders, and it sits on the top of Morgen’s head, covering it as far down as the eyes. The main body rises above, as if Morgen were wearing a strange, tall, tapered hat. Nozzles squirt moisture over the body, wreathing it in a fine mist.

  I can’t take it all in. My mind is numb. This... joining is what the mummers’ masks represent.

  “The sea folk,” I blurt out. They’re shoals, but not of fish. Shoals of decopus.

  “Yes,” Morgen says again, those depthless decopus eyes turning to me. “You broke the cycle and woke the Dreamers. First we became one. We were the Dowr. Now there are two voices in the deeps, Zarate Aguirre, and a great gulf between them. Now we are the Dowreth, and we are here, where the need is greatest.”

  And Morgen has chosen to be a part of them, more than their voice. Much more. To be joined to them. To be... my dazed mind has to search for the right word... a symbiont.

  “Morgen,” Talan says again, and holds out her arms.

  The symbiont walks forward with the old Morgen’s grace and they hug each other awkwardly. Morgen’s hands pat Talan’s back.

  “Still me,” she whispers in that strange, echoing voice.

  “But how the nova did you get here?” I ask.

  “Talan?” Someone else is coming up through the tube. His voice is distorted by the echoing spaces, but Talan and I both know it.

  “Danny!” we say together.

  “The same.” He’s laughing.

  “How—” I start again, but Danny jumps clear of the tube and sweeps Talan into a new embrace, leaving me with Morgen, a decopus and an utterly bewildered Kat and Ruslan.

  If Danny’s here, it means that the Shohwa has come. And they must have collected Morgen from Kernow. They’ll have news, of Bleyd at least.

  My heart skips a beat.

  We might be lost in the labyrinth under the city, but we’re not so alone anymore.

  Lady of Mercy, our thanks.

  But why have the Dowreth come?

  I try for a third time to ask, but Danny stops me. “Speak as we go. We have to hurry.”

  He’s already urging us down the tube, back to the walkway along the subterranean river. A group of Xian marines waits there for us.

  Suddenly the idea of getting into the Bureau of Justice doesn’t seem quite so hopeless.

  Danny talks as we go, keeping us at a trot. At least he and the marines have powerful lights so we can see.

  “We arrived in this system with the relief convoy and started talking to Hwa as soon as we could. She warned us you were down here,” Danny goes on. He shakes his head. “Never have found you if it wasn’t for Morgen. She can sense you in this maze.”

  Ahead of us, one of the Xian marines is waiting beneath the overhead tube we should have gone up.

  “Hwa is due in court right now, and she needs your evidence,” Danny says as we climb. “The Duke’s going to try and delay things a bit, but there’s another problem. Yarritu—the guy who gave Hwa the book with the map of this place in it—he’s been taken in for questioning by the Bureau of Security. Hwa thinks this place is going to be swarming with troops soon.”

  My heart leaps at the news. Bleyd is here. Bleyd has left Kernow to come for me.

  We’re so close, but there’s still so much that can go wrong.

  I have to put all those thoughts away and concentrate on getting into that courtroom.

  My mind trips into gear.

  Security troops will be coming down into the labyrinth, but they won’t rely on that alone. There’ll be other troops in the city looking for us.

  “Hwa’s route, the one she sent us, that had us coming up alongside the delegation’s buildings,” I say as we climb up another level. “Is that where we’re aiming?”

  “Yes.” Danny helps Morgen up out of the tube.

  “Hold up, Danny. Stop. This is important. Do you have an application that can work out routes through the tunnels?”

  “Yes. Hwa sent it all to me.” He brings out his InfoPad and, with a few commands, creates a three dimensional projection of the labyrinth. The route he has mapped is highlighted.

  I squint at it.

  “No,” I say, manipulating the pointers in the map. “There’s another way. It’s a risk, but if it works, we just might manage to slip past the Guard. This is where we need to go.”

  Chapter 64

  Hwa

  The sweeping expanse of Iruña’s Plaza Nagusia holds the chill of early spring nights that a weak morning sun has not yet banished. It’s a damp, grey chill that lurks in the shadowed corners and lingers on the pale stone fronts of west-facing buildings. A cold wind flicks the edge of Hwa’s gorgeous formal robes, and she shivers.

  She’s standing at the top of the rippling Olatu Steps which lead down to the plaza.

  Alice stands behind her patiently as she takes in the scene. Raul is there as well; it’s too soon for him to be left on his own. He’s muttering and twitching as he and Xing work out how to share his body.

  Every other main city square on the planet is full of people being given supplies of food from the Xian convoy’s shuttles, but Iruña needs no food yet. The Plaza Nagusia is not empty, though. At the four ornamental wells, one at each cardinal point, there are units of the Presidential Guard, easily recognizable in their black uniforms. They look like ants swarming over drops of honey. The wells have been unsealed and Hwa watches as some of the troops climb down into the shafts.

  Things are not going well.

  Ministro Yarritu has disappeared into the basement of the Bureau of Security.

  When she’d found the maps inside his book, Hwa had realized he was a very brave man. She’s sure his office is under permanent surveillance by the Bureau of Security, and that he would have known that. To have given her the key to guide Zara into the city through the labyrinth beneath had taken enormous courage.

  Yes, a very brave man, but not a strong one. Not once the Bureau of Security started on him.

  Hwa’s diplomatic status must be under scrutiny too, but she’s not been arrested and no cancellation of the court case scheduled for this morning has been given.

  The only thing she can do for Yarritu is to bring this government down quickly. For that, she needs Zara and the evidence she carries. And luck.

  She descends the steps to the plaza.

  She knows that Zara’s in the labyrinth. She knows that Danny, Morgen and a platoon of Xian marines are in there as well. No one else knows any more for sure. The labyrinth defeats even the advanced electronic communication capabilities of the Shohwa.

  Morgen.

  Hwa shivers again. She spoke to the symbiont on the comms earlier, and she, of all people, should be able to understand the symbiosis of two entities. She can remember how it felt with Zara. But perhaps because of the closeness of that bond with Zara, she has picked up some of Zara’s human trepidation about the joining of Morgen with one element, if she can call it that, of the piskateller shoal which swims in the third cargo module of the Shohwa.

  “We are needed here,” the symbiont had said, with her peculiar slow speech. “We see all projections are tangled about this place and point in time. There may be something we can do, and if there is, we must be here to do it.”

  That we see is part of what is so eerie about Morgen. Hwa knows that the shoals don’t actually see the future. They see movements in data, possibilities and opportunities. Their methods don’t map to anything Self-Actualized Entities can fully understand, but a short burst of communication from Shohwa herself leaves Hwa in no doubt that the Dowreth’s advice has rapidly become highly prized by the Xian.

  And perhaps Morgen’s assessment has already been proved in a small way: the shoal on the Shohwa above is able to remain in tenuous contact with Morgen. Unlike electromagnetically based communicatio
ns, the gestalt’s connection seems to be able to penetrate the layers of rock beneath the city. On the other hand, speaking directly to the shoal without Morgen to interpret is like trying to drink one mouthful from the base of a waterfall. The shoal hasn’t settled into a self-awareness that allows them to adjust and focus their communication for untrained humans.

  Instead, Zarate, Kattalin, Talan, Syndacian, Daniel, Morgen, us, soldiers are delivered from the shoal to Shohwa in a burst of accompanying sensations—tunnels, smell, darkness, noise, claustrophobia, shock, fear, grief, fatigue, here, not-here, river, well, climbing, change.

  Shohwa thinks it all means that Danny, Morgen and the decopus have found Zara and the others, as Morgen promised they would be able to. However, it also means that they’re still in the tunnels.

  And now the Presidential Guard is down there.

  She’s tried to relay this information to the shoal through Shohwa, but she doesn’t know if the warning has been accurately conveyed to Morgen—or if she will be able to evade the hunt and get the group safely into the city. As long as they stick to the route she gave, they should be well away from the Guards going down the Plaza Nagusia wells. They’ll come up next to the delegation, and then their only problem will be how to get past any Guards still on the plaza itself.

  Disguises? Senior Delegate Keo is standing by to help.

  Regardless of all that, time is quickly running out. They must present the evidence today, probably this morning.

  Hwa begins to walk across the plaza, one eye on the time, one eye on the Presidential Guard and half an ear tuned to Raul/Xing, muttering to himself. She could do without the distraction, but she’s too worried about them to leave them behind.

  She’s worried about everything.

  Sánchez will know soon, if he doesn’t already, that the food is being distributed. The threat she held over him to start this court case will be gone. He can’t legally close the case, but he could adjourn it, delay it. Or unilaterally decide that it’s really the jurisdiction of the Enquiry.