Ex Machina

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “But this was my father, and he was in such pain, and he was begging me…. I had a moment of weakness. I turned off the machine.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Just a short time later, they found a cure. He probably would’ve made it, if I just hadn’t… hadn’t…”

  “Leonard.” Now she held him in her arms. “Your motives were kind.”

  “I try to tell myself that.” He gathered himself, pulled back to look at her. “And since then I’ve done everything in my power to make up for that mistake, to make sure that I never lose another life unnecessarily.” The image of a young Megarite fighting for her life flashed into his mind, and he winced. “I haven’t always been successful.

  “But the point is… Hell, the point is, Natira, when it comes to guilt over your father dying, you’ve got nothing on me. You didn’t kill him, the Oracle did.”

  “And a sickness killed your father. But you feel you helped it do so, and I feel the same.”

  “But you didn’t. You didn’t know he’d react the way he did. You had no idea what would happen. You just asked one more question. You were the victim, Natira, as much as he was.” He stroked the side of her face once, tenderly. “So you have to let go of your guilt, Natira. It’s blinding you, driving you to a vendetta against your own people.”

  “Only against what they believe!”

  “What they choose to believe. That’s the difference. You and your father didn’t have a choice. These people do, thanks to you. You showed them the truth, shut down the Oracle, freed them to make their own decisions. Can you take that freedom away from them just because they didn’t make the choice you wanted? Is that what your father would’ve wanted?” She stared at him, taken aback. “Natira, your father chose to sacrifice his life because he knew you deserved the right to think for yourself. Don’t make that sacrifice meaningless… like my father’s was.”

  They spent a long time after that only gazing into each other’s eyes. Then Natira drew closer and tentatively, tenderly kissed him. They stayed that way for an even longer time. Afterward, Natira afforded him a faint, wistful smile and said, “I shall make you a bargain, Leonard. I shall try to release my guilt… if you will try to release yours.”

  “I’ll try,” McCoy agreed. “But I don’t think it’ll be that easy.”

  “Maybe it will be… with someone to share the burden.” Then their lips met again.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The most violent revolutions in an individual’s beliefs leave most of his old order standing. Time and space, cause and effect, nature and history, and one’s own biography remain untouched. New truth is always a go-between, a smoother-over of transitions. It marries old opinion to new fact so as ever to show a minimum of jolt, a maximum of continuity.

  —William James

  SCOTTY LOOKED ON gratefully as Ki’ki’re’ti’ke wriggled his long, gray caterpillar-like body out of the cramped maintenance conduit that ran behind the temple wall, emerging back into Yonada’s control room. The Escherite was a godsend when it came to crawling around in maintenance shafts and Jefferies tubes, particularly with the way Scott’s back was going these days. And particularly when it came to a conduit as cramped as this one. It was barely large enough for an adult humanoid to fit into, leading Scott to wonder if it had originally been maintained by robotic drones. The Yonadi had certainly lost plenty of other technology in the course of their journey, so why not?

  Scott listened to Kick’s report and studied his tricorder readings, nodding as they confirmed his own conclusions. Then he made his way over to Mr. Spock. “It’s as we thought, sir. The heating elements and electric stunners in the temple were late additions to the original system, right enough—but the decay shows they were installed sixty-two hundred years ago, give or take a century. Not fifty-six hundred.”

  Spock took the tricorder from him and studied the readouts. “Fascinating. So the temple room’s defenses were added five to seven centuries before the Oracular regime arose—during the secular period of Yonada’s history. That suggests they were not originally intended as ‘divine punishment.’ ”

  “I suppose not. But they were definitely meant to protect something. Maybe to prevent unauthorized access to the control room?”

  “Which would suggest that the ones in control felt threatened by their own people—more so than previous generations had. Assuming, of course, that these security systems were not merely replacements for earlier models.”

  Scott mulled it over. “I don’t think so, sir. Aye, they were hooked up to pre-existing circuits, but I’m certain those circuits were originally designed for a very different use— probably for some kind of information system. The security devices push the limits of their power capacity but use hardly any of their bandwidth.”

  Spock looked at him with great interest. “It is possible, then, that the contents of the Fabrini intelligence files were originally available to the People.”

  “Aye, it seems reasonable.”

  Now Spock began to pace. The sight struck Scott a bit oddly; he was used to seeing the Vulcan much more poised and reserved. “That suggests two purges: the one fifty-six centuries ago when the Oracular regime displaced the secular and purged all written history, and an earlier one six centuries before that, which denied the People access to the history and knowledge of Fabrina. However, the mountain cache did contain documents dating from before that period. So these earlier revolutionaries, at least, either did not seek to obscure all their history, or were not successful in the attempt.” He frowned. “Unfortunately, the number of recovered documents predating that time is small, and provides a very incomplete picture of the first forty centuries of Yonada’s journey. What preceded the secular regime, and what triggered the two revolutions—if indeed there were only two?”

  “Well, we know the environmental crises started over six thousand years ago,” Scott said. “Maybe the first revolution happened because people weren’t happy with how the old regime handled the problem. And then things didn’t get better, so the new regime got itself kicked out a few centuries later.”

  “Yes… on the whole, the track record of armed revolution as a tool for meaningful change is poor enough to make one wonder why it continues to be attempted at all. Yet we are in the midst of such a revolution, and I begin to wonder if this investigation has any chance of affecting that situation in a positive way.” Spock’s pacing intensified, and his expression grew grimmer. “The deeper we dig into this history, the farther we seem to get from an answer. And I fear any answer we do find will simply be twisted into an excuse for more violence!”

  Scott stared at the Vulcan, nonplussed by his intensity. He’d heard that Spock had changed after V’Ger, but this was the first time he’d seen it clearly, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it. But Spock noticed his reaction and gathered himself. “My apologies, Mr. Scott. I find frustration to be one of the more difficult emotions to manage of late.”

  “No need to apologize, sir,” Scott said understandingly. “We all need to let off some steam now and then. No harm done.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Scott.” Spock studied him. “May I ask you a question?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “You have a tendency to be—if I may say so—somewhat excitable.”

  Scott was about to respond to that rather sharply, but realized he’d only be confirming the charge. “Well,” he answered, “I do have a habit o’ speakin’ my mind, sir.”

  “And yet this never seems to interfere with your performance as an engineer—a discipline which requires clear, logical thought.”

  “Engineering—logical?” Scott laughed. “Och, no, sir. All that orderly, calculated stuff is fine for the theorists, but when it comes to working with real machines it’s all about intuition. It’s about gettin’ to know your hardware, listenin’ to what it tells you, feeling what it needs. It’s like…” He blushed a bit. “Well, it’s a lot like bein’ in love. There’s a reason we call ships ‘she.’ Sir.”
<
br />   “Fascinating,” Spock said, with only partial irony. “So you feel your emotions actually enhance your work— indeed, are even essential to it.”

  “I can’t say as I’ve really thought it out that way, sir, but I suppose so. I can’t imagine doing this—doing anything— without a passion to fire you. I figure you could say emotions are like the power source that drives the machine….If that helps you see it in more concrete terms, sir.”

  “Perhaps it does,” Spock said thoughtfully. “But what does one do when the power source is too strong for the machine to regulate?”

  Scott shrugged. “Well, if it’s a machine you either replace the power source or the regulators. But with a person… well, that’s the sort of thing where you just have to go with your gut. Feel your way through to the right balance.”

  “I am afraid,” Spock said, “that I find that rather circular.”

  “Sorry I can’t be more help, sir.”

  “Nonetheless, Mr. Scott, your efforts are appreciated.”

  Scott fidgeted a bit. “Well… back to work, then.”

  “Indeed.”

  * * *

  Christopher Lindstrom stood in the Hall of the Creators, hoping he would soon gaze upon their benevolent countenances. The S.C.E. lieutenant estimated it would take another ten minutes.

  It had been a long road getting here, though he’d walked through it many times without knowing what it was. The key had finally come to him when he’d figured out what had been bothering him in the oral histories he’d been collecting—or specifically in the repeated phrase, “The Halls of the Creators, where the privileged are laid to rest.” The anomaly had been that one key word, “privileged.” These were tales from the subalterns, the lower classes of the society. To them, Lindstrom had realized, the privileged were the opposition. Openly expressing disapproval of the elites would have been a quick route to a deep-fried frontal lobe, but could there be a veiled irony in the tales, with “privileged” as a code word for the bad guys? To people who’d lived their lives without privilege, the code would have needed no explanation, but to someone without that context, the irony would have been missed.

  So, what if being laid to rest in the Halls of the Creators was not something to be admired, but rather something to be disapproved of? Maybe that was what the conflict had been over—maybe the “privileged” had assumed a privilege that others felt they had no right to.

  Then he thought about the “laid to rest” part. That implied burial. But the Yonadi hadn’t practiced burial. They’d lived in a closed, artificial ecosystem, in which everything was supposed to be recycled. Traditionally, dead bodies were sent to the recycling chambers along with all other materials—with more ceremony and via a different path, but it all ended up in the same place. True, natural burial was a means of recycling biomass—as Hamlet had put it, “A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm”—but its efficiency had been too low for Yonada’s purposes. So burial would have been seen as wasteful, an act that deprived the People of necessary resources—perhaps a vanity for those who wished to have marked grave sites for their family members. Given the environmental crises that had plagued Yonada for the better part of a millennium (according to the science staff’s latest results) prior to the institution of the modern Oracular state, such wastefulness could certainly have been grounds for conflict.

  But then, the Halls of the Creators couldn’t be an afterlife. They had to be somewhere physical on Yonada itself. But where? Not the temple—there were levels of machinery beneath it, and certainly no room for graves. The engineering complex that ran Yonada might have been “the Halls of the Creators,” but tricorder scans showed no interred remains beneath them. Possibly some geographical feature on the surface, some particularly impressive valleys?

  The key had come from one of the books in the recovered mountain cache. One of the fragmentary texts had contained a reference to “the Hall of the Creators.” Score one for Spock: the oral histories had confused singular with plural somewhere along the line. And in the singular, the Fabrini word for “hall” meant a corridor or passage, not an auditorium or building as in English. Knowing he was looking for a single, specific passageway, Lindstrom could narrow it down to those that were large enough to host a battle and to hold a significant number of graves, which had solid ground underneath to accommodate those graves, and which were central or architecturally impressive enough to deserve a name like “Hall of the Creators.” Spock had made a good suggestion of his own: look someplace close to the rulers’ power base, since that would be a logical place for the privileged elites to bury their dead.

  Indeed, the wide, high-ceilinged passageway where he now stood was just outside Yonada’s governmental complex, from which the priesthood and their bureaucracy had done the day-to-day business of carrying out the Oracle’s will. Tricorder scans had revealed over two dozen tombs carved into the stone underneath—even more of a waste of resources than Lindstrom had surmised, since there was no means for the remains (which were mummified anyway) to get back into the ecosystem. They’d also revealed that the walls were a late addition, dating from 6,200 years ago, and that the original walls behind them were coated in various pigments dating back as far as 9,800 years. The sensors couldn’t discern between the pigments well enough to reconstruct the images, so there had been nothing for it but to call in the S.C.E. team to remove the outer wall with all possible delicacy.

  The team had used precisely calibrated excavation phasers on wide beam to break the molecular bonds of the plaster, crumbling most of it away, but had used quick bursts to ensure that the effect didn’t penetrate all the way to the inner wall. That had left a thin coating, which they’d been slowly abrading with sonic cleansers. Finally some colors were starting to show through, and Lindstrom had been nearly jumping out of his skin with impatience to see the rest. He was relieved when the team leader handed him a brush and invited him to join in the final phase of plaster removal, the old-fashioned way.

  For the next hour or so, his perspective was limited to the detail level, an eye here, a hand there, a swath of color somewhere else. It helped distract him from his eagerness to see the whole. But finally he was able to step back and behold what the ancient Yonadi had wrought.

  Somebody sixty-two centuries ago had tried to erase this mural from the People’s knowledge, but in so doing they’d preserved it beautifully. It was a portrait of the Creators, looking very much like the icons in Rishala’s temple. There was Vari with his golden armor and high-crowned helmet; Baima with her blindingly white hair tumbling around her plump, matronly frame, her nudity representing the unadorned Truth; young Dedi beside her, her hand on his shoulder, as he gazed out at the viewer with a querulous, challenging gaze that demanded answers; Nalai the Midwife, her lower face devotedly focused on the babies nursing at her four breasts while the upper gazed unflinchingly out toward their future. Even Nidra’s face could be seen, a shadow in the lurid red sun that filled the sky.

  But what struck Lindstrom was the shape that stood in the Creators’ midst, with Vari’s hammer and chisel at its base as though he’d just carved it. A tall, angular monolith of gray-black marble with white veins, with a golden starburst shining in its center, illuminating the scene more brightly than Nidra’s sun—the altar of the Oracle of the People. Rendered here ninety-eight centuries ago, near the start of Yonada’s journey. Rendered as a religious icon, in the midst of the Creators.

  “You know what this means?” he said to Spock over his wrist communicator, after uploading an image from his tricorder to Spock’s.

  “What it suggests, at any rate. That the central computer was defined as the Oracle from the beginning. That the Creator religion was originally used as a basis for state authority, and the secular state arose later. That is, assuming we can be sure the mural dates back to the early post-launch era.”

  “I think it does, sir. There are newer pigments—it must’ve been res
tored several times—but tricorder scans show it’s the same image all the way down to the rock.” He reached out gingerly to touch the ancient image. “We should announce this, sir. It might undo some of the damage Natira did by releasing the earlier findings prematurely.”

  “Exactly why we should not be premature now, Mr. Lindstrom. This is a valuable piece of the puzzle, but revealing it before we have context will only make it easier for various factions to co-opt it to suit their own agendas.”

  “Understood, sir. It’s just… it might convince Natira to back down a little. Maybe be a little more open-minded.”

  There was a pause. “It seems that will not be necessary. Dr. McCoy can at times be very persuasive.”

  * * *

  Rishala knelt at the head of the low hexagonal table in the temple’s meeting room, looking around her at the community leaders gathered there, and for the first time she felt like an outsider in their eyes.

  Or was it the first time? Perhaps it had been building for years now, too subtly to notice. Once, back on Yonada, she had been one with the common People. She had held no formal authority, but for some reason people had found her thoughts worth listening to, had invited her to speak the tales of the Creators, had sought her advice and approval on matters beneath the notice or outside the interest of the Oracle and its priesthood. She’d insisted that she was no wiser than they, but she’d been glad to help, and the community had welcomed her help.

  Once Natira had apostatized and dismantled the priest-hood, the People had felt a need to have that vacuum filled, and to Rishala’s alarm and embarrassment, the consensus had swiftly emerged that she should adopt the title of high priestess and lead a faith shaped by popular will rather than Oracular fiat. She had succumbed to that will, in part because certain defrocked members of the priesthood (including a minor functionary named Dovraku, though he’d attracted little notice at the time) had begun campaigning to regain some of their lost power, and Rishala had concluded that her leadership would be the least of possible evils.