by J. E. Gurley
“What are they doing?”
“Converting the ships into energy sources.”
“How?” Jazon had never imagined the possibility of such a thing.
“It is accomplished by transferring the energy of the Skip engines into the weapons systems and bleeding it slowly into the frame of the ship itself. They allow the Skip engines to warp space just enough to act as gravity wells. This converts the metal of the ship slowly into plasma with the accompanying release of heat and energy. It is a unique approach to energy production.”
“I doubt the Cha’aita would agree. Do they sense us?” Jazon reached out with his mind but could feel nothing but Amissa.
“They have sensed us since before we left. They are waiting.”
“On a gas giant with rings,” he mused.
“I can’t tell.”
“Trust me,” he said confidently. “Take us there.”
As they neared the planet, Jazon could barely make out a steady stream of black dots that ran from each of the tiny artificial suns toward the gas giant.
“The Phyein,” Jazon exclaimed.
Amissa took his remark as a question. “Yes, hundreds of thousands of them. They appear to be feeding on the energy. I sense higher amounts of stored energy in the returning Phyein. They are using the distorted gravity waves of the ship to propel themselves.”
“Clever little devils aren’t they?” Jazon wondered what else they might be capable of.
“They have advanced far beyond the expectations of the Dastorans. Some of their technology is quite esoteric. It appears to be based on assumptions beyond human comprehension.”
“We may be looking at the new lords of the galaxy,” he said with awe.
The binary system they had entered consisted of a red giant sun fifty times the diameter of Sol and a white dwarf barely visible in the red sun’s glare. The red giant spun around the white dwarf like a stone on a string, making one complete revolution in less than one Earth year, a dizzying speed. Only the massive gravitational pull of the white dwarf kept its companion from flying off into space. Even so, it trailed a veil of ejected solar material like a fiery comet. Two gas giant planets orbited the red sun, one in close proximity to the sun, veiled by a halo of boiling gases, the other situated farther out, as far as the Oort Belt in Earth’s solar system.
Amissa began quoting date about the exotic system. “The outer ringed gas giant’s orbit fluctuates between the two stars. Every thousand years or so, the white dwarf’s pull exceeds that of the red giant, and the planet changes suns in an elliptical figure eight pattern. It is quite unique.”
“Maybe its uniqueness contributed to the rise of the Phyein,” Jazon proposed.
Amissa ignored him. He felt part of her mind retreat. “I’m receiving a message.”
“On what frequency?” he asked. Could it be the Cha’aita, or perhaps Lord Hromhada?
“No frequency. It is in my mind,” Amissa replied.
“I sense nothing. See if ….”
Abruptly, as if shoved from behind, he was once again standing on the rings that surrounded the gas giant. The Phyein, one of them, was in front of him working on some small object. Tiny flickers of light erupted from time to time so bright Jazon had to shield his eyes.
“You brought me here to speak with you?” Jazon asked.
Without indicating that it had even noticed his presence, the Phyein answered, not in his mind, but with the voice of his father.
“No, I brought you here to teach you, my son.”
Jazon felt a wave of deep emotion sweep over him at the sound of the familiar voice. He fought it down. “Teach me what?”
“Teach you to trust.”
“Trust in what?”
“In yourself,” the Phyein replied.
“You could reach my mind thousands of light years away. You didn’t have to bring me here to teach me to trust, in myself or anything else. Why am I here?” he demanded.
“It was ordained in the beginning.”
“What was ordained?” Jazon was frustrated. Getting information from the Phyein was like pulling teeth.
“Ordained since the beginning of our existence,” the Phyein continued. “We knew of you, would know of you, and knew you were the one to free us.”
“Free you from what, the Cha’aita?” he guessed.
The Phyein lifted its clawed foot and presented Jazon with a metal sculpture, crafted in such detail it looked as if she were alive. It was Amissa.
“From Amissa?” He held the statue in his hands, turning it to see the intricate details in the dress and especially her eyes. They were open and staring.
“No, from ourselves.”
“I don’t understand,” Jazon shouted. “How can I free you?”
“You will come to understand. Come to us, Hataalii. Come, Spider Brother.”
“You can … what the hell?” He was back in his body, still linked to Amissa’s mind. The entire conversation with the Phyein had taken place in the space between words.
“What happened?” Amissa asked. Jazon could sense the concern in her voice.
“I just spoke with one of the Phyein. They need our help.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “Take us in to the outer, ringed world, slowly.”
“As you wish.”
“Jettison the computer core and destroy it.” There was no reason to take any chances with the hive mind Phyein taking control of the ship; though he knew that it could just as easily control him if it wished. It was what Lord Hromhada wanted and Jazon was still playing by his rules – for now. He sensed an explosion outside the ship – the computer.
“Done,” Amissa announced.
“I must unlink and inform the others of what to expect. Please continue to monitor and apprise me of any change in the situation.”
“Yes, Jazon, my love.”
For the first time since their lovemaking, Amissa had allowed an emotion to slip through the neuro-link. Jazon felt her love for him as it washed over and through him, as if she were caressing him with a thought. He allowed the thought to linger a moment, savoring it before breaking the link.
His mind broke from Amissa’s as if a cleaver had split it in two. It took a few moments to steady himself and to gather his disjointed thoughts. He called Ulrich and Lyton to the bridge. As an afterthought, he contacted Huumba as well.
“Huumba, you and Harthim man the weapons stations just in case these Phyein are not as friendly as they appear. I’ve jettisoned the computer core so use manual tracking.”
“Acknowledged,” came Huumba’s terse reply.
He saw the weapons systems power up seconds later. Jazon didn’t expect a threat from the Phyein, but more than his life was on the line here. Better to prepare for any eventuality. The Phyein had drawn him here. They had used Lord Hromhada, Lyton, even Amissa to bring him to this place. What did they plan to teach him?
Jazon remembered his feeling of separation after what he thought had been his failed attempt to find an animal spirit guide. His mother had just died, and his misplaced anger at his father and himself, even the land itself, all seemed to conspire to drive him from the home he had loved. His inability to fathom why he felt the compulsion to leave behind everything he had known had eaten at him from the day he boarded the bus until now. If, as the Phyein were claiming, they had engineered everything about his life, then he was no more than a puppet on a string, playing a part in some cosmic play. Had any decision been truly his?
He and Amissa were bound heart and soul because of her origins and his. Both were essential to the drama unfolding yet Jazon couldn’t help feeling something was missing, some key part that explained his life.
The Phyein were an advanced species, but that didn’t explain his visions, his feeling that some guardian angel was watching over him. There was something spiritual at play, and Jazon couldn’t see how an inorganic being, a creature made of stone and bits of metal, could
understand the spirit world.
For most races, advanced science denied the existence of the spirit world. The two couldn’t coexist, at least not in his world. If science could explain the existence of the unknown dimensions through which they had traveled, it was possible science could explain planes of existence beyond the scope of man, realms that intruded into the metaphysical. If his spirit guide was a spider, why was he surprised to learn that he had been guided to a land of metal spiders that understood his world better than he did?
Lyton and Ulrich entered the bridge. Both looked at him expectantly. He nodded to Ulrich.
“If anything happens to me, take this ship back to Lord Hromhada. Play on his honor to return you and Lyton to Earth.”
To Lyton, he smiled and said, “Don’t sober up quite yet, but you might want to cut down a bit. These Phyein are far more advanced than you thought. We might need your little friends.”
Lyton looked puzzled. “How could you know?”
“I’ve seen them, spoken with them. They have a purpose, but I don’t think they’re dangerous. Still, better safe than sorry.”
“Did they disable the Cha’aita ships?”
“It appears so. They’re busy doing something with them.”
Lyton looked ashen. He swallowed hard. “I see.”
Ulrich said, “If they destroyed the Cha’aita, doesn’t that make them friendly? You know, the enemy of our enemy is a friend?”
Jazon laughed. “Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer still,” he quoted. “They might not see much difference between us and the Cha’aita.”
Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. The Phyein had brought them here for a purpose that had nothing to do with the war between the Alliance and Cha’aita. What then, was their plan?
17
“… grope tear-blinded in a desert place and touch but tombs.…”
Tears Sonnets of 1844 Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Lyton’s eyes remained glued to the main view screen in the galley’s lounge. A single tear ran unchecked down one cheek. His mouth looked as if he were making a silent ‘O’. Ulrich knew how the professor felt. Such beauty was unsurpassed elsewhere in the galaxy, save for some of the more esoteric sights they had witnessed in parallel dimensions. The gas giant was smaller than Jupiter, but boasted massive green and brown parallel stripes separated by pink and buff-colored bands. No Giant Red Spot super storms marred its surface as it did Jupiter’s, but there were mocha colored swirls that wrapped halfway around the planet. It looked as if the finger of God had reached down and stirred the atmosphere. A faint blue haze danced in the cloud tops, traces of methane welling up from the tremendous pressures below.
The rings encircling the planet extended for nearly two hundred kilometers, separated from its host by 50,000 kilometers. The rings were extremely thin, perhaps less than two hundred meters at their edges. From Occam’s Razor’s position above and just outside the rings, it was evident that the Phyein had succeeded in unifying the myriad planetoids and pieces of rock and ice that comprised the rings into one, massive flat plane.
Such remarkable engineering was far beyond the capabilities any of the other races in the Local Arm and, Ulrich imagined, the entire galaxy.
“It’s magnificent,” Lyton whispered. “It’s unbelievable.”
“How did they manage it?” Ulrich asked.
Lyton pointed to the rings. “If you look closely, you’ll see several nodes where bundles of cables have been anchored. They simply wove a gigantic net connecting each separate piece of the ring and let inertia do the rest. When the speeds matched, they connected them with fibers. The entire ring is moving as one piece. The inner diameter of the rings is about 150,000 kilometers and the outer diameter is 150,200 kilometers. There must be close to nine million square kilometers in the rings.”
“How did you arrive at that figure?”
“Simple. The area of a circle is pi times the radius squared. I calculated the area of the outer circle then subtracted the area of the inner circle.”
“That’s an awfully large area.”
“Slightly larger than the United States.”
“Why do they need all that land?”
“I have no idea,” Lyton admitted.
He pointed to two faint moonlets. “They used those shepherd moons to tighten the rings before weaving them into one unit. At one time, the rings might have extended a thousand kilometers or more. It’s a marvelous piece of engineering.”
“For what possible reason?”
Lyton glanced at Ulrich and frowned. “I don’t know that either.”
For two hours, he and Lyton sat in the galley watching the rings for some sign of the Phyein, but none appeared. The utterly alien race seemed preoccupied on the far side of the rings.
The three Cha’aita ships, or rather their corpses, remained blazing like small nuclear furnaces, emitting energy, which Phyein collected in some unknown manner and transported it back to the rings in an endless convoy.
As they watched, the first of the three artificial suns dimmed, and then exploded as the last of its converted mass erupted in one final burst of energy.
Lyton sighed. “It’s like watching the life cycle of a star speeded up by a factor of ten billion.”
“Many of them must have died in the explosion,” Ulrich noted.
“Lord Hromhada said the Phyein are a hive mentality. An individual has no life on its own. It’s just a cell of the overall intelligence.”
“If there are so many of them, the intelligence of the creature must be staggering.”
“It’s certain we don’t have the capacity to do what they have done, nor the patience. Is all of this being recorded?”
Ulrich nodded. “Three ship’s cameras are recording, and Amissa is downloading the ship’s sensors every ten seconds.”
“Good. We don’t know if we’ll ever get this opportunity again.”
Ulrich noted Lyton’s earlier despondent mood was gone. He seemed cheerful and inquisitive about the Phyein, not the man who had admitted his purpose for the trip was their extermination.
“I wonder how they overcame those Cha’aita vessels.”
“By swarming them with overwhelming numbers and taking over the ships’ computers, I suppose.”
“And the crews?”
Lyton glanced at Ulrich but said nothing.
“Why haven’t they attacked or even noticed us?”
Lyton smiled but continued to stare at the screen. “Oh, I’m sure they’ve noticed us, all right. We were invited to this banquet, don’t forget.”
“Invited as a guest or as the main course?”
Lyton cackled, “Indeed.”
Ulrich spotted something odd in the direction of the blazing ships. The stars beyond appeared blurry. He pointed it out to Lyton. “What is that?”
Lyton picked up his comp pad and studied it a few moments. He frowned and looked up at Ulrich in awe. “I think they created small black holes.”
“Why would they need black holes?”
“I don’t know, but they’re moving them toward the planet. I’m impressed. They’re using some type of electro-magnetic pulses to propel the black holes. It looks as if some of the Phyein are reversing polarity and releasing large amounts of energy from their own bodies. They’re literally killing themselves to move the black holes. What determination! How could organic life forms ever match their resolve?”
After a few minutes, Ulrich noticed something moving toward them. “What’s that, there, at the edge of the rings?”
Lyton focused his attention in the direction Ulrich was pointing. “I don’t …”
“Use the planet as a background.”
“Oh. Ah, it looks like a cable.” Lyton cried out.
Lyton keyed the comm. “Jazon, do you see the cable approaching us.”
Just as he spoke, the two laser batteries fired up. Six, powerful energy beams lanced out from the ship and sliced the cable into small pieces. T
he Phyein scattered. They quickly regrouped, recovered the pieces, and backed away beyond laser range, waiting.
“It looks as if he did,” Ulrich noted. “What are they trying to do?”
“Either to provide a link or passageway for them, or possibly to secure the ship.”
“Trap us?” Ulrich cried in alarm. He hadn’t thought of that possibility.
“Possibly,” Lyton conceded. He reached for his glass of vodka but stopped. “Perhaps I should dry out a bit.”
Ulrich looked at him and gulped. “You mean …”
Lyton shrugged his shoulders. “Just in case.”
“I’m beginning to wish I had listened to Jazon,” Ulrich admitted. “We could be on our way to Earth by now.”
Lyton shook his head sadly and smiled. “Lord Hromhada went to an amazing amount of trouble to locate Jazon Lightsinger after the Phyein contacted the Dastorans. I don’t believe he would have ever allowed you to simply leave.”
“You knew this but didn’t tell us,” Ulrich shot at Lyton. Lyton’s reluctance to trust him and Jazon had bothered Ulrich from the start.
“I suspected as much, but I wasn’t certain. I couldn’t have informed you if I knew. My mission depended on your accepting Lord Hromhada’s offer.”
“Still, as a fellow Terran …” Ulrich began.
Lyton waved his hand to stop him. “You have not been back to Earth in many years, have you? Things have changed. The war drags on, and fear is spreading that we are losing. If word got out of the Dastoran plan to leave the galaxy, there would be widespread panic and perhaps an uprising against the present governments of the world.”
Ulrich was appalled. “Things are that bad?”
“Yes. That is why my orders were to eliminate the Phyein. Earth needs no more threats to its safety.”
“Do you still …”
“Intend to do it?” he finished. “I don’t know. Jazon says there is a chance that the Phyein are not a threat to mankind.” He shrugged his shoulders and pursed his lips. “I don’t want to destroy them.” He pointed at the view screen. “Just look at what they have accomplished in less than four years.”