The Pattern Ship (The Pattern Universe)

by Roote, Tobias

  When it fulfilled all of the requirements for the ship build, excepting the materials in the human, it notified the Maker of its intention to start building. Receiving immediate confirmation to proceed, it D-jumped to the cavern and re-materialised hovering two hundred feet above the shelf.

  Both sides of the shelf were covered with various sized stacks of freshly refined materials. There was an expanse of empty ground beneath it, where it had deliberately left sufficient space to hold the ship it was going to build.

  One further modification was required. It de-materialised a hollowed-out section of the shelf to the exact curvature and depth of the new ship. It would allow the A.I. to keep the craft stable while it concentrated on the construction.

  It now pulled up the pattern for the T-Ship incorporating its Maker’s latest modifications to the Dematz thrust excluding the A.I. build specification. It then proceeded to transmute large portions of materials into the alien alloys and metals which by their specific molecular structure provided all the strength and versatility incorporated into all previous ships.

  A day later in the planet’s terms, it had achieved stage one completion. The A.I. began using the new D-field, the term it had given to the use of the Dematz thrust when being used locally for construction while its tractor fields grabbed the materials, moulding the shapes required.

  When finer work was needed, the A.I. released millions of nanobots to weld the sections together at molecular level.

  At one point it was holding forty two sections together using the tractor fields. All of its on-board processors were being utilised giving Zirkos momentary pause for thought as the Pod’s circuitry ran hot, running the risk of a total meltdown. The peak soon passed and Zirkos stopped monitoring as the A.I. balanced the ongoing workload.

  Progress continued to move at a phenomenal pace so that within a further twenty four hours, the ship’s hull was standing in its cradle.

  When finished the ship would be a seamless composite incorporating all of the internal requirements excepting any further additions requested by the Maker.

  ***

  Sixty minutes after Zeke had exited the building completely undetected, avoiding all CCTV cameras, possible witnesses, especially late night dog walkers, he was safely ensconced in his digs, the rewards of his endeavour laid on the floor around him.

  Now, with the time to consider the nights’ strange and painful events he pondered the amazing light curtain he had been attacked by. He had no doubt he had been attacked by it even if he didn’t know how, or why.

  Somehow, the beam had reacted with his plate. What it had just done to him, he had no inkling, except for the impressive hangover it left him with when he woke up. He nursed his head, hand automatically feeling out the seam of the metal plate where it joined his skull. Not for the first time wishing he could pry it off and have blessed relief.

  Zeke thought that whoever had decided to smelt and fashion the piece of meteor into a replacement for his smashed skull would have been much better off using a cut out section from an old jerry can.

  He wasn’t up on the capabilities of current technology, but he was pretty sure there was nothing that could create that visual effect, let alone make it sonically vibrate like that.

  Whatever it was that had hit him, he was going to to do his level best to avoid letting it doing so again, with a passion.

  It did cross his mind that its attention was somewhat personal, that it had appeared directly in front of him, followed him, then deliberately scanned him. That was worrying. A directed beam aimed at him? He wondered about the Scientists, had they tracked him down?

  He decided he wanted some serious time to think before having to wrestle with that little gem, so shoved the matter to the back of his mind until he could better deal with it. Hopefully when this pounding headache had gone.

  He viewed all the equipment he had purloined, setting to work building his computer network. Within the space of a couple of hours he had a set-up that would satisfy a professional hacker. Not that he was intending to do much, just get himself out of the murky back-streets and back into mainstream society.

  Zeke began to formulate a plan of attack with the authorities. He fully intended to be in a job within a month. For that he needed an ID and an address. Tomorrow he would begin working on it in earnest.

  Meanwhile, exhausted from his gruelling ordeal as well as the stress and unusual exercise, he pulled out his sleeping bag that he religiously rolled up every morning. Moving the reclaimed sofas around until he had his favoured combination he turned off the small LED lamp and slept.

  A short while after he fell into a deep sleep, the light curtain that had attacked him earlier reappeared at the foot of his bed.

  This time, however, it was a dull green and very faint, as if set to a lower power threshold.

  It proceeded up his body unnoticed by Zeke. As it reached his head the power dropped further until it was just a faint glimmer. As it scanned its way across his skull for the second time that night Zeke didn’t stir. The curtain of light cut out when it reached the top of his skull finally leaving Zeke in peace.

  - 7 -

  The A.I. pulled up a review of its progress. It had mined and collected all components in the quantities required to complete fabrication. It had transmuted all raw materials into the necessary exotic alloys, formed all the necessary parts and sections; nano-bots had welded everything together at molecular level, meaning that effectively the ships’ construction was now complete. It now only needed to D-Jump into space to charge the power cells.

  It also needed the A.I. construct to manage the ship’s systems by obtaining materials from the human source for which it had not yet received approval from its Maker. So falling back on its permitted actions, it slaved the ship’s systems to its own and from there carried out all the necessary pre-flight checks before D-Jumping the ship and itself to the previous location in space located at the apex of the northern hemisphere.

  Here, out of the way of all the satellites and surface radar, it carried out its final integrity checks.

  The Pod A.I. set about checking seals, space locks, instrumentation, life support systems, applicators, and weapons systems, in amongst other peripheral tasks. The fuel intakes were activated to extract and compress exotic matter from normal space for the jump actuator. Solar cells generated the necessary power for the engines to be put on-line allowing further systems testing to take place.

  The A.I. worked continuously adding all the ancillary equipment using its wide array of nanobots while Zirkos kept in the background finalising details of a personal project using the D-field the Pod had worked out.

  Within several planet days the T-Ship was completed and ready for phase two.

  The Pod A.I. pulled up its working list of more exotic additions that needed to be completed and once sufficient power was available it hyper-jumped the new design T-Ship into the asteroid belt to the point it had arrived in the system many millennia ago, and selected a suitable rock.

  The A.I. set about converting rare raw materials on the asteroids surface. It manufactured everything by molecular integration to specifications outlined in the stored patterns. When finished the ship glistened externally with a new composite veneer and internally the infrastructure built itself with the new nanobots it had manufactured from the raw materials found there.

  This new hull was now the latest in the line of T-Ships and more than twice as advanced as the previous build. In some ways it was a completely new design, but the Maker insisted on retaining the old shape as it would provide for lower expectations in enemy confrontations.

  It was also bigger, sufficient to carry up to four Makers even though the internal design was only currently set up for one, the nanobots could easily restructure the interior to accommodate any changes. It was an efficient design.

  Zirkos was extremely capable, evaluating many of the patterns stored in the Pod’s data archive. As a result much of what had been set into the A.I.’
s comprehensive build incorporated improvements and advanced systems culled from patterned records.

  This was intended to be a formidable Warrior-Class ship, the first of its generation. No more running from the Nubl. If they turned up again, Zirkos intended to be able to retaliate.

  ***

  The progress on the new Warrior Class T-Ship had Zirkos quite excited. It was unusual for any of the Brethren to apply patterns from other race’s technology in an ad-hoc manner such as it had done. As with the original test of the Dematz thrust on the Pod, which had subsequently and fortuitously resulted in their continued survival.

  Having realised the benefits of utilising other advanced technologies in the fight for survival, it had decided to corporate as much as could be found, or utilised from the Pattern library.

  Zirkos had no doubts at all that, had this technology been already incorporated into the ship design, they would have survived to pass the knowledge back to the Brethren.

  If the Nubl advances didn’t already put their ships ahead of this new design which it acknowledged was old technology in terms of the time it had spent buried under the planet’s surface. It had been a working hypothesis of the sentient’s analysis, but the Nubl successes meant they might not have progressed much further technologically, unless they had met a more superior enemy.

  Zirkos decided to begin the search for answers soon.

  In the meantime it was still pondering the problem of the Alacite in the humans’ system. It had already reached the disturbing conclusion that in all of the virtual tests it had conducted, the human had died before the transformation was completed. The concentration of the substance was just too high for the human physiology to cope with.

  As yet, non of the tests had managed to proceed to a point where the end result of the transformation could be assessed. It set up a new series of virtual tests to see if lower concentrations of Alacite resulted in any change in outcome and left them to run. It would review its findings when the new results were included.

  ***

  Zeke was not coping well. His days were becoming increasingly a mind fuddling experience as the effects of the poison in his system began to cause serious organ damage. He realised it was not just a matter of coping with the pain and trying to sleep, he had missed a couple of meal drops too.

  Deep down he knew things were not going well. Unsure whether the incident with the light beam had accelerated things, or not he was left wondering now if he had any chance of surviving this at all.

  He had dropped all pretence of using the computer to find work and other currently meaningless objectives, instead he used the search engines to research his symptoms. The consensus came back - blood poisoning.

  He became delirious much of the time, in the few periods of coherence he consumed large quantities of water and then slept fitfully. The veins wherever he could see them now stood out and looked a weird ruddy blue with an almost iridescent quality.

  A week after his successful break-in at the pawn shop he awoke to find himself kneeling on the floor with his head resting on the chair seat. He had passed out. He had no knowledge of what he was doing on the floor, only that it was difficult to move. The pain in his joints and limbs was so great he was unable to create any lift to get himself onto his sofa.

  He thought that he would just die there to be found in years to come when the demolition crews came through to check the place. His corpse would be found, a dried out mummy. They would assume a drug overdose or other self inflicted substance. They might not even call it in if they were working to a deadline. He would disappear under a thousand tons of pre-mix.

  The pain erupted in a fresh wave and before he could think what to do his thoughts disintegrated and he passed out.

  Zeke, so far in decline that he was hovering on death’s door and having been unconscious now for another three hours, didn’t notice the deep red beam appear near his feet behind him, a good deal wider than him and several inches thick. It was much bigger than previous incidents.

  Moving slowly across his now comatose body it expanded until it covered him. Glowing deeply the beam increased in depth and intensity until Zeke was completely encompassed within its light.

  Sparks danced within, flowing upwards at an increasing rate, vanishing at the top of the beam, some seven feet above the floor.

  Inside a room on the T-Ship an identical beam reproduced the sparks, both beams creating a matched illuminated reflection. Dust seem to drop from the beam in the ship, the grey sponge-like substance that constituted the floor seemed to collect it and spirit it away so that it remained unmarked and clean despite the amount of dust that seemed to fall out of the deep red beam.

  A few minutes later the beam’s intensity dropped off as it reached a point of fewer and fewer sparks transferring between the two points. When it stopped altogether the reflected surface vanished showing the disappearance of Zeke’s body from the locked room in the building. Its simultaneous appearance of Zeke’s body, now hairless and completely naked, on the floor of the ship completed the process.

  Where he had previously sported a metal plate in his head Zeke now had a complete bone skull and natural skin covering. It was so well matched to the rest of his head that it was impossible to see any join. The nanobots that had knitted the cells together with the culture that had been synthesised to provide the organic material required were still inside his body continuing to repair the badly damaged organs. The excess heavy metal in his bloodstream had also been removed. Zeke would live.

  - 8 -

  Zirkos dwelt overly long on the one decision of many needed; return the human to the locked room, or keep him on the T-Ship until the experiment was complete. Zirkos was curious as to why this human, in the condition he was in, was alone, locked in a room when the technology abounded on his planet to keep him in health, if not heal most of his current terminal complaints.

  All of Zirkos’ research had led to the belief that people like this human were treated whatever the condition, yet this human was totally isolated. The sentient looked forward to the human awakening, it would then be able to ask him the reason and also practice its now fluent language. Strange though, that Zirkos should even want to after so many periods without company.

  It acknowledged that it found the human race intriguing and colourful, and that it had been far too long without company. For this reason it had deliberately immersed itself in their languages, cultures, histories and belief systems as well as their sciences, which were amazingly imaginative. The whole concept of everything being driven by a monetary system left Zirkos totally baffled. It seemed to be used as a means of selectively restricting progress. Yet when desired it was provided in almost unlimited amounts.

  A strange ethos, it thought, and not for the first time was tempted to consider intervening in their path of progression.

  It took control of its idle thoughts which had no place in the electronic brain right now with so much still to be done.

  The T-Ship was finished. It only awaited the reconstitution of the ship’s A.I. before the project was complete. Until then Zirkos could not re-materialise as it needed the A.I. installed to run the life support systems.

  The Pod might be able to manage, but its arrays were not suited to such critical support. The Ship’s A.I. was one Zirkos was familiar with, based as it was on its own original brain pattern. It would therefore sense any problems if they occurred and Zirkos would trust its bodily rebuild to it, and it alone.

  The Pod A.I. flagged his attention, it had found something.

  ***

  Zeke awoke. As was his recent habit he refrained from moving immediately lest he spark a new wave of agony. Instead, he briefly tried to think of where he was and how he got there.

  On a conscious level he realised that something was different. It took him a few minutes. His eyes remained shut, unmoving while he tried to place everything.

  Then all of a sudden he had it, there was no pain.

  Laying with his he
ad on the floor he tried hard to remember what had happened.

  He did remember the excruciating pain in his whole body, and using his chair as a headrest after collapsing on the floor of his digs while not having the strength to move. His head was now on the floor, therefore, he must have slipped off the chair.

  He slowly opened his eyes half expecting the pain to return.

  Instead they focused clearer than they had for a long time.

  He noticed the grey furrowed mesh that he was lying on. He still felt no pain.

  Where did the new carpet come from; it felt spongy, hard, but forgiving.

  He could see a good distance from where he lay and he understood that he was no longer in his locked room.

  In fact, he decided, he was nowhere he recognised. The wall that he could see was grey and featureless.

  The white painted brick with stains from years of abuse was no longer there.

  He moved his arms, he still... felt no pain.

  Dammit, he thought, those scientists had got him back, that light-beam must have been theirs.

  They must have given him a shot of something.

  He pushed himself upright, resting on his heels... he still felt no pain, no pressure, or vertigo.

  Indeed, that’s interesting, Zeke pondered as he felt the absence of discomfort.

  Now, able to take in his surroundings from a position of apparent normality, the strangeness of his situation became apparent.

  He was in a grey room, much smaller than his lock-up. He judged it to be ten foot by fifteen and the height about normal, say seven to eight feet. Probably nearer eight, he decided. Disturbingly, he couldn’t see a door.

  The floor was covered in grey matting which, while stroking it with his hands, felt nothing like he had ever touched before. It felt different, not woollen fabric, not fur, not nylon. Nothing he could place in his memory as having a likeness to.