by J. E. Gurley
Lyton laughed. “Permanent. Yes, Jazon, it is. I’m afraid I lied about a way to destroy the nanites. Once out of stasis, they began to consume microscopic traces of metals in my body – iron, magnesium, copper, sodium. My time is limited to a few hours at most. I knew this would be a one-way mission. I insisted. I knew that I would never be able to live with myself if I destroyed the Phyein. I’ve grown used to the idea of death. It’s strange, but it no longer frightens me. Thanks to you and to the Phyein, I no longer fear death as the end I had assumed. Now, I’m eager to see what’s out there beyond the veil that separates us from the infinite.”
“I understand Lyton. I wish … I wish there was another way.”
“Will you explain to my dear friend Ulrich? I’m afraid I couldn’t summon the courage to face him. Strange isn’t it? I can meet death with no qualms, but I couldn’t face Ulrich to tell him of my plans.”
“You respect Ulrich and didn’t wish to hurt him.”
Lyton was amazed that Jazon had summed up his thoughts so precisely. “Yes, that’s right. I do respect him. He has evolved a great deal on his travels. His grasp of the Three Principles is astounding. He will make a good leader for his people. Tell him I said so.”
“I will.”
“I think you will find him a great deal less tractable than before. He has cast aside the humility of his origins and has accepted his rightful place. Earth is in turmoil right now. It needs more leaders of his caliber.”
“I’ll tell him you said so.”
“And tell Amissa I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“I should have revealed all I knew about her much earlier. It might have saved you both some difficult moments.”
“We survived.”
“Love usually does.” He clasped his chest at a sudden pain. The nanites were working. “I won’t speak any more, Jazon. I wish to observe the wonders around me for a short while. Call me when it is time to leave. It will take only seconds, thirty at most, for the nanites to do their job.”
“How do you know they won’t contaminate the ship?”
“There is a trace amount of oxygen atmosphere in the rings, enough to slow down the nanites. Besides, when you Skip, everything nearby will receive a rather large dose of radiation. It will sterilize the nanites, and I rather think the atmosphere exploding from the world below will tie up any loose ends.”
A moment of awkward silence followed.
“I don’t know what to say, Lyton. Thank you.”
“No. Thank you, my friend. It has been a pleasure.”
He cut off his communicator afraid his willpower was less than perfect. Any extraneous calls for his return to the ship might weaken his resolve. It wasn’t as if wanted to die, there was always time enough for that. For once, he wanted to feel that he was contributing something tangible to humanity and not some philosophical dribble that most people neither understood nor cared about. This sacrifice would even the score for all that he had enjoyed in his long life.
Even with cloned implants and rejuvenating drugs, one-hundred and twenty years was a long time to live. He had seen most of his friends and colleagues die before him. It gave him time to reflect on the growth of humanity, and he was optimistic about humanity’s chances. In spite of all their differences, the nations of Earth had united in peace before seeking out the stars. In spite of a century and a half of war, humankind’s indomitable spirit refused to admit the possibility of defeat. Man had climbed from the muck and mire to the stars without the help of the Dastorans or the Fallusians, an accomplishment in which they could take great pride.
Lyton sat on his boulder, ignoring the cold that seeped into his suit, and watched the planet spin beyond the edge of the rings. He felt like he was sitting on one of the old vinyl albums he had seen in the museum, spinning out its song. He began softly humming to himself.
A voice entered his mind, gentle and comforting. “It is time, Professor Lyton.”
“You are the Phyein?” he asked in wonder.
“We are.”
“Will you … stay with me for awhile?” He liked the warm feeling in his mind the Phyein presented. It would be less lonely to die with friends.
“Our mind will not break contact until the very end. Perhaps even then we might guide you.”
“You can do that?”
“Perhaps. Our power grows rapidly. The lines between life and death, reality and possibility, are in a flux at this point. If there is life after death and if you are strong enough to accept it as a core belief, there would be no need for an ending. Death could be as simple as slipping through an open doorway. There is energy inside humans that cannot die, the spark of life or the soul, if you would call it so. It will continue to exist after your body has gone. We will tend this energy and send it on its way to its final destination.”
“Heaven?” he asked.
“We do not know. It is time.”
Slowly, Lyton pulled a knife from his utility belt. In spite of his commitment, he was reluctant to die. He placed the blade against the fabric of his suit, near the wrist. A momentary flash of panic enveloped him, but the soothing presence of the Phyein calmed him. He sliced through the tough fabric of his suit, letting his blood flow onto the cable holding Occam’s Razor fast to the ring plane. The cold was numbing. He could hear the hiss of escaping oxygen.
He was sure it was his imagination, but he could almost see the nanites devouring the cable. His arm grew numb from the cold and breathing became more difficult. His arm froze to the cable, connected by a patch of frozen blood. A fine mist of atmosphere drifted from his suit before falling to the ground as ice. The steady hiss of air as it leaked from his suit lulled him to sleep. He closed his eyes and lay down on the ring, his arm still attached to the cable as the nanites did their job.
“Rest now,” a voice (the Phyein?) whispered.
He smiled. He had done his part. He had atoned for any sins he might have committed on this mission. The rest was up to Jazon Lightsinger and the Phyein.
“We are migrating to our new home.” The Phyeins’ message burst into Jazon’s mind.
“Lyton is releasing our ship. He said take as many of your units as you can. It will increase your chances for survival.”
“We read his wishes in his mind. We will be with him until the end.”
“Thank you.”
“When you see the planet’s atmosphere explode, you must leave. You will have twenty seconds, no more.”
“That’s cutting it close.”
“You cannot hope to fight twelve Cha’aita ships.”
“That’s true. You didn’t get all the prescient material from Amissa,” Jazon added.
“We know. We took what we needed. What remains is an integral part of her, as inseparable as her other organs. What she does with it is yet to be seen.”
“Will you make it to your new home?”
A sound Jazon interpreted as a chuckle swept through his mind. “Even we cannot see that. There are many variables. We have hope.”
“You can hope?” Jazon asked, amazed at this admission of an emotion.
“The future is unclear, but we desire a safe journey. Hope seems close enough to the proper emotion.”
“I wish you luck.” Luck had served him well over the years.
“Thank you. We will break contact now so that we might gather our units.”
The Phyein abruptly left his mind. He watched the Cha’aita ships approach, their intentions made clear by their battle formation. In spite of his hatred for them, he felt sorry for their fate. To die in battle was one thing; to die as they were about to, was another.
He felt the Phyein presence once more and, through their eyes, could see the moon straining at its retaining cable, eager for its release. Suddenly, the cable snapped, sending the moon spinning on its journey. Caught in the intensive gravitational field of the white dwarf, it sped away into the void, a lone speck among myriads of others.
“Goodbye,” he
whispered silently, and then felt only emptiness where the Phyein had been.
Immediately, Amissa rushed in to fill the void. “I detect a disturbance in the upper levels of the atmosphere of the planet.” There was obvious concern in her thoughts.
He tried to clear his mind. “Prepare to fire the engines. Skip as soon as we’re clear.”
“What about Professor Lyton? I detect he is still outside the ship.”
He let some sorrow slip through the link, and Amissa felt it immediately. “Lyton chose to remain,” he explained. He followed Amissa’s progress as she scanned Lyton’s biometric readouts.
“I see,” she said. Jazon could feel her sorrow match his own. “The atmosphere of the planet is boiling now, erupting in great flares.”
Jazon could see the atmosphere blown spaceward by the simultaneous collapse of the three black holes. Temperatures were soaring, turning gases to plasma. He was beginning to worry. Fire the engines too soon and the cable would rip them to shreds, or the Cha’aita would move to intercept them. If they waited a fraction of a second too late, they would become one with the cosmos in a most spectacular way.
“The cable is free,” Amissa called. He could sense the relief in her voice. He could also sense her preparing to Skip.
“Wait,” he urged.
The first tendrils of atmosphere were tearing into the inner circle of the ring plain. Waves rippled across its surface, headed for them.
“Jazon,” she cried out.
“Skip.” He watched the cloud of plasma fall behind. “Thank you, Lyton,” Jazon whispered.
Occam’s Razor left the rings behind as the rush of boiling atmosphere enveloped them. Millions of tons of debris, once held in check by the tightly woven Phyein web, blasted out ahead of the plasma cloud like pellets from a shotgun. The Cha’aita ships, unable to comprehend the danger they were facing, were unable to react in time. They came for battle, not an unleashing of cosmic forces. The debris smashed into the armada with the force of a million particle beam weapons, shredding the ships. Then, the roiling plasma cloud wiped all traces of their existence from space.
Amissa Skipped them to a point half a light year from the Phyein home world, far enough away to be safe and close enough to bear witness to the Phyein’s departure. The gas giant would survive, slightly smaller than before and ringless. Perhaps in a few million years, a new ring would form from the debris of the first demolished ring. In about a thousand years, some astronomer on Earth might witness the disturbance and wonder what event had taken place.
By the time the fringes of the plasma cloud cooled and dissipated into space, the new Phyein home world was two hundred million miles away and accelerating rapidly. If the Cha’aita sent more ships in pursuit, the Phyein would be a speck in the vastness of space by the time they arrived, as invisible as the blackness that surrounded them, just as they wished.
As Jazon watched the events unfolding, he felt a twinge of loss. The Phyein had been born here but were now bound for their new home in the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy. Perhaps it was for the best. He had not imagined how much energy they had at their disposal. The power unleashed by the Phyein was tremendous but did little more than skim the surface layers of atmosphere off the gas giant.
He suspected they could have destroyed the entire planet, possibly even the entire solar system, if they had so chosen, but did only what was necessary. Even the shattered rings would eventually settle into a new configuration, a memorial to Lyton’s sacrifice. Perhaps someday someone would name the planet, or the whole system, after him.
True to their philosophy, even in their need to cover their leaving, the Phyein had done as little damage as possible. They had warned the Cha’aita because of their belief in the sanctity of life. It was an admirable gesture; one that the Cha’aita should have heeded. Jazon felt only slight remorse at the destruction of the Cha’aita ships. They had few of the qualities he found admirable in the Phyein. Twelve top-of-the-line vessels would put a dent in their armada, fifteen, if you counted the three the Phyein had taken for their own use. He suspected it might be some time before the Alliance faced a concerted Cha’aita attack. They would be busy licking their wounds and trying to come to terms with the disappearance of the Phyein. Jazon wondered if the Cha’aita might even believe the Phyein were still around, waiting for the chance to strike again, like the boogeyman. The thought appealed to his sadistic side. It might make them amenable to talking peace.
He took one last look at the gas giant and the widening debris field around it.
“Take us away from here, Amissa.”
“To where, Jazon?”
He thought about it for a moment. They could drop Huumba off anywhere, take the ship and be free of Lord Hromhada and the Dastorans forever. Even Ulrich would not object. It was possibly the right thing to do, but deep inside he felt a cold warning as he thought of this solution. Somehow, it wasn’t over yet. This was a node of which the Phyein spoke. His next decision could alter the futures of everyone around him.
“To Lord Hromhada’s ship.”
“Are you sure, Jazon?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. We will make one Interstitial Skip lasting eight hours our time. We will arrive near Ataxa in twenty minutes.”
“Ataxa?”
“That is where Lord Hromhada is.”
“Why Ataxa?”
“I do not know.”
Amissa sounded as perplexed as Jazon. Full circle. “Very well. Ataxa it is then. What will be our objective elapsed time since departure?”
“Fifty-six hours, twenty-three minutes, fourteen seconds.”
He wondered what Ulrich would say when he found out they had gone full circle in two and a half days? It was difficult to grasp the time differential. To him, almost a week had passed. Well, that only meant he had done twice the worrying Lord Hromhada had. Besides, what could have happened in just over two days?
Ulrich watched the destruction of the rings and the Cha’aita fleet on the monitor in his cabin. He didn’t feel much like company. Jazon had informed him of Lyton’s decision to free them.
“Stupid fool,” he muttered. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
He knew his friend would not have suffered. Death would have been instantaneous, but still he couldn’t help but wonder what was going through Lyton’s mind at the end. Was he calculating the speed with which the plasma cloud was approaching? Was he observing the reaction of the upper atmosphere of the gas giant when subjected to black hole implosions? Did he have any regrets? Did he die with the hope of something beyond death? Ulrich hoped so. Lyton was a strange character, but he held closely to his beliefs in the Three Principles. In the end, he had died for them.
Ulrich wondered what Jazon intended to do now. Would he do as he had promised – steal Occam’s Razor and free Amissa from her Dastoran owners? Somehow, he didn’t think so. For all his faults and his pretense of not caring, he suspected Jazon’s sense of honor wouldn’t allow him to. He would keep his bargain with Lord Hromhada and hope for the best.
If Lord Hromhada didn’t kill them outright, Ulrich knew he would have to chronicle the events of their journey. How would he write his part? Perhaps reluctant participant would be as good a role as any other. He knew he was no hero, not even close. He was a survivor, although sometimes hero and survivor were the same. He imagined Jazon must have felt much the same way after surviving the Battle on the Rim. It must have been a tremendous burden to carry for so long.
If they survived Lord Hromhada, he would return to Khoristan and take his rightful place as ruler, at least long enough to set up a Parliamentary form of government. The fate of no people should be in the hands of one man, even if he was a Savant of the Three Principles. It looked as though he had quite a lot to look forward to, if they survived their encounter with Lord Hromhada.
20
“…but if they fell out and were divided, they would become weak.”
Plutach
“Ataxa! You’re
telling me after all this, we’re returning to Ataxa.”
Jazon couldn’t blame Ulrich for being upset. All they had gone through had been at Jazon’s insistence that they leave Ataxa. “Yes,” he said quietly. “That’s where Lord Hromhada is.”
“You don’t suppose he has always intended to maroon us on that feces world, do you?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. By the time we told anyone of the Dastoran plan to leave the Alliance, they would be long gone.”
“What about Amissa?”
Jazon winced. This had been the reason for his reluctance to return to Ataxa, but every bone in his body told him that failing to do so would end any chance at happiness he and Amissa might have. “I don’t know.”
“Damn it, Jazon! This doesn’t sound like you at all. I say we take this damn ship, kick the Drone off, and hightail it for home.”
Jazon smiled at the change in his friend. Ulrich was ready to take on the entire Dastoran race just because it was what he thought Jazon wanted. “I must speak with Lord Hromhada first, but I won’t give her up.”
Ulrich smiled. “That’s more like it. The way I figure it, he owes us each one million credits and passage to Earth. He can have Occam’s Razor, even if it is a great ship.” Ulrich’s smile fell away, replaced with a look of sorrow. “It’s sad about Lyton, Isn’t it?”
“I think he found what he had been looking for. He didn’t have to die that way. I think he wanted his death to be symbolic, something others would remember and in doing so, remember the reason for his death.”
Ulrich recalled Lyton’s fondness for Emily Barrett Browning. “That sounds like him, all right. He was a romantic at heart.”
Amissa’s voice interrupted their remembrance of Emil Lyton.
“Jazon, I pick up a large number of Dastoran ships leaving the Battle Zone.”
Amissa spoke directly into his mind now with no need for the neuro-link helmet. It was something they had discovered on the trip back. He wasn’t sure if it was because of their closeness, or something the Phyein had done to them. Either way, it would take some getting used to.