“There’s a manual steering column in the control room. Just remember to open the cargo bay doors once you get control of the ship so I can get out of this nasty weather we’re having out here, okay?”
“Got it.” Sierra was already running up the ramp and out of the control room. As she had hoped, the assessor took no notice of her departure, remaining fixated on the crumbling Command Center.
She sliced through the cargo bay doors in the next room, barely pausing as she burst into the wide open chamber beyond. There were half a dozen skiffs docked there, but most of it was empty space. She spotted the bioseine control panel at once. It was much larger than the other ones she’d removed, but it looked essentially the same, a series of parallel gray interface strips.
Sierra slashed the seal around the controls and they crashed to the floor. Her task complete, she turned and sprinted back to the control room.
When she returned, the assessor was still in the same position, consumed with his tireless vigil of the Command Center. Nox still had not stirred. The main bioseine interface was at the back of the room. Sierra ran over to it and began to slice it up.
“Hey,” came Raif’s thoughts in the midst of her work, “Are you getting a visual of what’s going on outside?”
Sierra glanced over her shoulder at the showers of falling rock and the bright streams of neophosphorous pouring from the ceiling.
“What is the praxis up to?” Raif asked.
“Give me a moment. Kind of busy here.” She had to go carefully around the edge of the panel this time, taking care not to damage any of the sensory and environmental panels on either side. A few moments later, the second interface clanged onto the floor. Sierra turned to see what the assessor’s reaction would be.
The man pivoted on his heel, his dark eyes no longer distant, but aflame with anger. His beard framed his face at unforgiving angles. He must have been handsome once, Sierra thought, but he was no longer. She had no doubt now that this was Malthus, the Assessor Primary from the chronotrace.
“You!” Malthus said, his hands trembling in the air as if he wished to choke her from afar, “What have you done?”
He leapt through the air, covering the half dozen paces between them in an instant. Instinctively, Sierra lifted up the cutter’s blade to ward off his attack, but the yellow beam did nothing to deter him.
He landed on top of her, pinning her to the ground with one hand while raising the other above his head as if he meant to strike her, but instead of bringing it down, he held it there, blazing in the air like a red lumin.
“I almost had him,” Malthus cried, shaking her, causing her head to jerk from side to side. “You killed him. You killed my son!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sierra cried, gasping for breath, “We need to get this ship out of here.”
“Were you jealous of his love and devotion to me? Is that why you took him from me?” the assessor raged, his expression devoid of all sense and reason.
The praxis list to the right, no longer flying level.
“You’re losing altitude,” came Raif’s warning.
“I can’t do anything,” she answered, her thoughts drowned in terror. “There’s a madman trying to kill me!” She opened her vision to Raif so he could see what she was seeing.
“If one of us doesn’t do something, this ship is going to crash.” She gasped out the words.
Her message pierced through Malthus’ blazing wall of rage. His head snapped back towards the window. Seeing the ship’s tilting trajectory, he let out a howl, his eyes bulging from their sockets. Sierra could feel her throat collapsing in on itself under his crushing grip.
“Please,” she reached out to him with her mind, no longer able to talk. “Please just let me go and I’ll help you find your son. I’ll do whatever you want,” she pleaded, but she could not tell if he received the message.
The mad light in his eyes flared brighter. “I should cut you to pieces,” he said, his voice low and guttural.
His grip grew tighter and tighter.
“You’ll kill us both,” she implored him.
Sierra fought against him with everything she had, prying at his fingers with both hands, but his grip was fast as stone. Her bioseine screamed at her in warning. It would be shutting her down at any moment.
Just when her breathless body reached the brink of collapse, Nox appeared out of the corner of her vision. From the edge of the room he tossed a black disc along the floor. The assessor turned toward the scraping sound. A flash of light blinded her and then everything exploded in an avalanche of noise. Sierra flew through the air and crumpled to the ground on the other side of the room.
When she came to, she was bleeding from a deep gash in her right thigh and multiple cuts on her legs and unprotected feet.
Nox was standing near the window, a look of terror on his face. His eyes were riveted on the assessor, who stood in the middle of the mangled control room, completely unharmed. Strewn all around him, tables and chairs had been alternately torn apart and fused together in a tangled mess.
“You’re a demon,” Nox shouted as he drew a pinion and fired it.
The assessor made no effort to avoid the weapon as it struck him squarely in the chest and splintered into fragments. The dark robed assessor advanced methodically towards Nox, his right hand encased inside a red sheath of light.
“You are Malthus, aren’t you? No wonder Nolan wanted you dead,” Nox said, firing another pinion which shattered after slamming into the assessor’s shoulder.
“So you are friends with the man who destroyed my son?” Malthus asked. “All the more reason to kill you.”
The assessor marched forward, shrugging off a third pinion and coming to a halt a step away from the horrified Wayman.
Nox darted to the side, but as quick as he was, Malthus leapt in the same direction and caught him by the arm, tossing him to the ground like a piece of scrap.
“The ship,” Raif called out to her, “Sierra, do something!”
Sierra clawed her way to her feet using the wall. The crazed assessor ignored her. All he saw now was Nox.
As the ground loomed before them, Sierra rushed to the steering column, leaving a bloody trail. She yanked it back as hard as she could.
The sudden shift in direction knocked the assessor off balance. Sierra risked a glance back towards him and saw Nox scrambling to his feet. Malthus recovered and pounced on him, knocking him again to the floor.
Sierra brought the praxis around further, narrowly missing the top of what was left of the Command Center.
“So you’re Nolan’s assassin? That’s who sent you?” Malthus asked, his hand a crimson light once again. “Perhaps one day I’ll get to do to him what I’m about to do to you.”
The glowing hand flared like a falling star and plunged into Nox’s belly. With a dismissive gesture, he sliced to the left and then back to the right, his hand passing as easily through Nox’s body as a cutter’s blade.
Nox stared at the cauterized gash where his midsection had once been, a cruel grin on his face. “Kill or be killed,” he said, and then slumped to the ground, dead.
Malthus arose, his face lit up like it was consumed by red fire. In that moment Sierra knew that he would kill her too.
But as he stepped towards her, something caught her eye from the window and she shouted.
“I see them! There, on top of that building!”
She pointed to the gutted framework of the Command Center where two men covered in glowing blue light clung to a crumpled platform of steel.
“That’s Adan,” she said, barely able to voice the words. “And that must be Gavin. They’re alive!”
“Gavin?” Malthus muttered, his rage vanishing. “Gavin’s alive?” He pushed Sierra aside from the steering column and took control of the ship. “Then my son is alive as well! I can still bring him back!”
Sierra moved over to the ship’s auxiliary system controls, including the one for t
he axom field. She didn’t bother to try and understand the change which had come over Malthus, but focused instead on pulling the twisted platform holding Gavin and Adan out of the quagmire surrounding it.
It rose slowly, still covered in a thick blanket of bluish sludge. As powerful as the axom field was, it seemed uncertain whether or not they would make it. The flows in which the platform was mired were unwilling to release their victims, but with a sudden jerk the platform broke free and Adan and Gavin began to ascend towards the ship.
“Thank you,” Malthus whispered as the platform pulled closer and closer. He motioned towards the exit. “Open the cargo doors.”
Locking the steering column so that the praxis would remain hovering in place, he bounded up the ramp and out of the room.
“Raif, the ship’s been stabilized,” Sierra told him in an exhilarated rush. Her fingers danced across the auxiliary controls, triggering the cargo bay doors to open. Then she hurried after Malthus. “And we found Adan and Gavin—they survived! We’re pulling them out of the wreckage. The cargo bay doors are opening now.”
“Are you sure? I saw two figures being pulled up on a platform. Was one of them really Adan?”
“Yes”, she answered, joy flooding her every thought.
“Well, he’s a lot shinier than I remember him, then,” Raif added, her friend’s words only adding to the elation she felt.
Thirty-Nine
Through the Viscera
Adan and Gavin pulled themselves from the wreckage of the bridge, which lay, still dripping with neophosphorous, near the circular opening in the floor of the cargo bay. Moments before, they had floated up out of the ruins and into the enormous praxis cruiser as if lifted by the hand of Numinae himself.
As they set foot on solid ground once more, Malthus, and then Sierra, rushed into the large room. Malthus’s presence was troubling, but when Adan saw Sierra, he forgot about everything else. His joy was too complete to have anything overshadow it at that moment. Sierra was alive. She had terrible wounds on her legs, but she was alive and he had never been happier to see anyone in his life.
“Gavin,” Malthus said, throwing his arms wide and embracing the haggard scientist. “I thought I’d lost you.”
Gavin returned the embrace wearily. “Thank you for saving us. We owe you our lives.”
Sierra ran to embrace Adan at the same time, tears spilling down her face.
“I can’t believe I found you,” she said in his ear.
Adan could find no words to express what he felt. He simply held onto her, feeling for the first time that this is what arms were made for.
“I thought you might have been…I’m sorry I couldn’t go back for you. Are you all right?” he said.
“I am now.”
The reunion was broken up by the arrival of the citus through the large opening in the floor.
“What is this ship?” Malthus asked. “I gave the order for everyone to evacuate.”
“Just more survivors from below,” Sierra said.
“It’s the pride of Oasis, my friends, the last line of defense, the man of the moment, the ace of the fleet…” Raif’s thoughts bubbled out across the Collective channel.
“And his sidekick, Von,” added the former assessor, surprising everyone with the uncharacteristic remark.
The same delight and relief at being alive and together radiated through the thoughts of everyone gathered, everyone that is, except Malthus. His thoughts remained closed off from the others.
“Now that I’ve found you,” Malthus said, regarding Gavin intently, “we can get out of this place. We’ll build another chronotrace—a better one this time. There is a lab on this ship with everything you'll need to get started.” His face formed something like a smile, but the sheen surrounding him distorted it, making it look more like an agonized grimace. When Gavin did not reply, it looked like his expression morphed again, to something more akin to worry or impatience. “Is something wrong, Gavin?”
Gavin remained silent. Like Adan, he was a strange sight, his skin, hair, and clothing shone a bright turquoise blue, making him look like some otherworldly being. The only thing that betrayed his emotions were his eyes. They looked sad and somewhat guarded, two patches of darkness within a shining countenance.
Malthus’ eyes scanned Gavin’s expression, as if looking for something he had lost. On the other side of the cargo bay Raif maneuvered the citus so that he set down the remains of the two lancers. He floated the citus gently down beside it.
Though everyone else turned to watch the landing, Malthus just kept staring at Gavin.
“I realize that my threats before may have hindered our relationship,” Malthus said, his tone warm and yet forced. “But when I saw the Command Center crumbling into ruins, I realized what a fool I’d been. If I lose you, I’ve lost everything. You are the one hope I have of getting back my son.”
Gavin’s gaze fell. Adan could tell he did not want to say what he was about to say, but that he felt compelled to say it nonetheless.
“I’m sorry, Malthus,” Gavin said, “but you’ve been lied to.”
Malthus gave him a startled, angry look, as if Gavin had just slapped him in the face. “What do you mean?” he thundered, his cheeks flushing.
“There is no way to bring back your son.” Gavin spoke slowly and deliberately, “Darius was lying to you about bringing him back. He only told you that it was possible so that you would join the Developers.”
As quickly as the color had rushed into Malthus’ face it drained away. He stared at Gavin with hollow eyes, the silvery sheen flickering across his face as if it represented his vacillating thoughts. He looked unsteady on his feet all of a sudden, ready to stagger or faint.
“No, you’re wrong, Gavin,” he said, recovering slightly. “Dane was here. You saw it in the chronotrace. That man may not have looked like my son, but outward appearance is irrelevant. I know my son. It was his thoughts, his memories.”
“That is what Darius wanted you to think. He manipulated your mind so that you would be happy, so that you would help him protect Oasis. But Nolan’s personality started to take back over almost from the start. Darius knew the memory transfer would never take hold permanently so he ended it when it no longer served his purposes. It was Darius who erased Dane’s memories from the Repository, not Nolan.”
“No.” Malthus exhaled the word like the first rattling winds signifying a storm. “You are the one who is lying. No one can change my thoughts. I am protected, even from memorants.” His voice seemed sure and deep, but at that moment the sheen around him faded. His eyes darkened and locked with Gavin’s and suddenly Adan, who was standing next to Gavin, could read Malthus’ mind for the first time.
Adan realized that Gavin was using the miasma channel to break through the shield protecting Malthus’ mind. The variance field had protected not only his mind, but his body as well, making him almost invulnerable to harm. But the miasma channel operated above this shield, or perhaps below it. It was as primitive as it was advanced, something that technology had “unlocked”, but which had existed from the beginning of time. Darius had no more invented it than scientists had invented the law of gravity.
Malthus’ mind was a rigid framework of knots and cords which bent at sharp angles. The strain between them was so great it was a wonder they didn’t break. The lines became smaller and smaller the closer they got to the center until they disappeared into a small black hole. But as Adan became accustomed to the mental landscape, he could see that the hole was growing larger.
“What is happening to him?” Adan asked Gavin privately, realizing that something was not right, but not able to grasp exactly what it was.
“That hole is his relationship to his son. And it’s eating up everything inside of him. His hope that he can bring Dane back to life is the one thing that’s keeping him alive, the one thing that has kept the hole from devouring him up until now. Darius saw this as well. In a twisted sort of way, by lying to Malthus
and stringing him along with false hope, he kept this man alive. If I take away that hope, he may give up on life altogether.”
“I didn’t want to have to do this, Malthus,” Gavin said. Adan could see the conflict raging in his friend’s face almost as clearly as he could sense it in his mind. “But I can’t let you live your life based on a lie, no matter how precious it is to you. Your son is dead and you will never get him back.”
The words, though spoken softly, sent a tremor through Malthus’ body.
“No!” Malthus shouted and started for Gavin, raising his hands as if he meant to strike down the man he had so desperately been trying to save a few moments before. But Gavin stopped him with his words.
“There is no way to bring him back, Malthus. We are more than our experiences, a succession of events and choices. There is something transcendent within us that no technology can capture or replicate. You need to let him go,” Gavin whispered. His eyes looked empty and sad, as if it were his own hope he was crushing as well.
Malthus tensed, like a spring winding up to be released, but Gavin stopped whatever he had intended to do, overtaking his mind completely with the miasma channel. Though he could have made Malthus believe at that moment whatever he wanted him to, he did not use his abilities to manipulate Malthus’ thoughts as Darius had done. Instead, he removed the barriers which Darius had created, barriers which kept him from seeing the truth. Thoughts and lies fell away and all the sharp angles and twisted corners of Malthus’ mind cracked and crumbled under the weight of that truth. Gavin travelled through Malthus’ thoughts, breaking down these barriers and setting him free at last to see reality once again in all its cold harsh light, and all the while the black hole at the center grew.
In the time it took the first of the passengers from the newly arrived ships to disembark and begin wandering towards Adan and the others, the lies gripping Malthus’ mind had been undone. When Gavin released him back to his own thoughts, Malthus finally saw the truth for the first time.
The shimmering shield surrounding him was gone, and with it Malthus’ hold on life as well. He looked hollow, exposed, lost. He said nothing, but the emptiness in his eyes said all that needed to be said. In the space of a few moments, Malthus looked to have shriveled in stature. He was no longer the imposing man he had once been. He was broken, wretched, and alone.
The Chronotrace Sequence- The Complete Box Set Page 68