The Orphaned Worlds

by Michael Cobley

  ‘With the Marshal Paramount as your judge,’ Gideon said, ‘the outcome would be somewhat harsher than dubious. So, you are a major …’

  ‘Retired, Captain. Have been for some years now.’

  Gideon nodded sombrely. ‘My official title is captain but my commandery numbers over fifteen hundred combat troops with another three hundred support personnel. Perhaps you can understand the nature of command and how those you lead become important to you.’

  ‘Yes, I do. There is duty, discipline and hard training. There is also community, trust and loyalty.’

  Gideon’s expression remained composed but the hardness of regret came into his gaze.

  ‘Yes, Major, all of that was my gladly shouldered burden until seventy-two hours ago when Marshal Paramount Becker issued writs for the arrest of myself and my senior officers, after publicly denouncing us as antinomic.’

  ‘But only the Archon’s Council can order the arrest of a principal officer,’ said Malachi.

  ‘The Bund and Council have already quite happily approved every one of Becker’s reforms, Malachi,’ said Gideon. ‘This is just one more step along a well-trodden road.’ Turning to Theo he said, ‘I am sorry for the indignities you’ve had to suffer, Major Karlsson, but I am unable to return you to Darien straight away. When we gained control of this vessel at Base Condor, we also discovered the orders regarding yourselves: luckily we had sufficient time to “collect” you while on our way back to the Home system. I have an urgent rendezvous to make back in my home system, in the vicinity of Mirgast, the outermost planet. Once it is concluded I shall certainly convey you back to your home planet.’

  ‘Will there be any danger involved in this meeting, Captain?’ Theo said. ‘Should I brush up on my sharpshooting?’

  Gideon smiled. ‘I do not anticipate any hazards, Major. The rendezvous is with an old friend of mine, man by the name of Sam Rawlins.’

  ‘The Preceptor of Veterans?’ said Malachi. ‘They say that in his youth he could hit the bell of the Surgeon’s Tower from the other side of Alecto with an old Watch pistol.’

  ‘I’ve seen the dents,’ Gideon replied, then his expression became serious. ‘I wouldn’t have expected Sam to risk meeting with me, given the authoritarian climate back home. His message to me was brief, mentioned some historical discussions we’ve had, and strenuously urged me to meet him in orbit around Mirgast in about eleven hours. I’ve decided to go, not least because as Preceptor of Veterans he may be able to persuade the Archon’s Council to give me a fair hearing. That way I’ll be able to prove Becker’s charges false and launch a counter-accusation challenging the Marshal’s usurping of the council’s duties and powers.’

  ‘Still sounds very risky,’ Theo said. ‘Can you trust this Rawlins?’

  ‘I trust him implicitly,’ Gideon said. ‘He was Captain of the Nightwalkers Commandery and my mentor before I was transferred to the Stormlions.’

  Theo didn’t think on it for long – his options were non-existent. ‘Very well, Captain, I’m not as young as I was but I still know how to handle weaponry,’ he said. ‘If I can be of service, I am ready.’

  ‘Thank you, Major. I may take you up on your offer.’ Gideon turned to Malachi. ‘And you, Tac-Sergeant? I will not force you to stand with me. The choice is yours.’

  Malachi saluted. ‘Sir, my loyalty is clear, as is my duty. All I ask is a choice of weapons!’

  ‘I think that can be arranged.’ ‘Could I have some of that combat armour, Captain?’ Theo added.

  Gideon smiled. ‘He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.’

  To which Theo replied, after a moment or two of recollection, ‘But courage is like love – it must have hope for nourishment, and gentlemen, I hope to go on being nourished for many years yet!’

  ROBERT

  ‘… with a standard configuration are straightforward data objects; just input them to the navigationals and the ship transits through the levels to the destination. The Intercessor’s coordinates, however, are encoded in a multi-parameter format that specifies transit location, velocity and approach vector …’

  ‘And if we fail to cross into this pocket universe, we’ll have to retrace our moves and try again, yes, this I understand.’

  ‘Good, it is satisfying to see that my schooling has sunk in,’ said the droid Reski Emantes. ‘Extrapolation from initial conditions is always instructive.’

  I can certainly extrapolate how much more of your patronising I can take, Robert thought. All I did was ask how many parameters the Intercessor’s data had, and … cue lecture!

  He was on the bridge of the Plausible Response, working through a series of screen operations tutorials provided by the ship AI. However, when Reski Emantes learned of this, the droid took it upon itself to concoct its own programme of improvement and in the three days since departing the Urcudrel Seam on Tier 92, Robert had so far sat through five lectures on the divisions of hyperspace as well as ancient civilisations and lost races. At any other time, with almost any other teacher, he might have enjoyed learning that the tiers were grouped broadly as the Recent, the Mids, the Deeps, and the Abyss. Or that an insectoid race called the Raphaxis had once expanded across several tiers in the Upper Mids, creating an empire held together by a network of dimension gates until their rulers died from a plague of psi-parasites. Another teacher would probably not have made every session an exercise in demonstrating the pupil’s intellectual shortcomings.

  In fact, between Reski and the Ship he had hardly had any time to mourn Rosa’s passing; only the quiet moments before sleep seemed to be entirely his own. With Rosa gone, both AIs paid him more attention – some of it unwanted, certainly – yet it only served to keep him informed rather than to seek orders. Most of the time he felt like a passenger who was being simultaneously humoured, lectured and talked down to.

  ‘Can I assist you with any other gaps in your understanding?’ said the droid.

  ‘Only if he wished those gaps to widen,’ interjected the Ship. ‘Your tutorial style leaves a great deal to be desired.’

  Reski Emantes descended a little to come level with Robert’s eyes and swung its tapered end towards him.

  ‘Poor Ship,’ it said in low, confiding tones. ‘Its pedagogic routines are woefully out of date …’

  ‘Tuition methods vary from generation to generation,’ Robert said, keen to forestall any volleys of sarcasm. ‘I can see the benefits and advantages of both your approaches.’

  There was a very brief but noticeable moment of silence.

  ‘Fascinating that you could hold such an opinion,’ said the droid frostily.

  ‘I concur,’ said the Plausible Response. ‘But such deliberations will have to wait as we are now drawing near to the transition point. Robert Horst, I will provide a subsentience to oversee your use of the screen and the holographics.’

  ‘And I shall occupy the helm console,’ said Reski Emantes. ‘In the event that the Ship’s cognitive capacities become over-stretched.’

  ‘I applaud your professionalism,’ Robert said quickly before the Ship could come back. ‘I have every confidence in your abilities.’

  By now Robert had inserted audiobeads in his ears and slipped his hands into the soft-lined multicursor grips when the Ship muttered:

  ‘I applaud your diplomacy, Robert Horst.’

  ‘Our task is complicated enough, Ship, without any unnecessary friction,’ he said. ‘Incidentally, have you had a response from the Construct since Rosa died?’

  ‘Only a standard acknowledgement. I shall dispatch a further update on our status just before we enter the pocket universe. Now, if you are ready to continue, please open the skinconfig pyramid and select “mountaintop” …’

  Guided by the Ship’s subsentience, all seemed to go to plan. The holoconsole offered a kind of expanded perspective littered with 3D images of the Plausible Response, readout glyphs detailing the ship’s operations, its trajectory and acceleration curve, the stepped field build
up in the hyperdrive, all set against a vista of lesser peaks and hills, plains, lakes and forests seen from a mountaintop.

  Then at last the final moments ticked away as the Plausible Response flew along that minutely calculated course, hyperdrive fields intensifying towards the synergetic transforming point of precision, that undeviating plunge across the threshold of mystery …

  Lights and screens died. Darkness closed in. All the tiny sounds of the bridge ceased, as if the ship had suddenly held its breath, which did not feel normal. There was a thud over towards the master consoles, and an instant later a scattering of lights winked on at workstations and various touch panels.

  ‘What happened?’ he said. His screen showed only the pulsing spirals of initialisation and nothing came over his audiobeads.

  ‘That was no ordinary boundary we crossed,’ said the droid, which was rising from the floor of the master console dais. ‘Ship, have we arrived? What caused the negation? Ship? … Seems that those ancient circuits—’

  ‘Are performing at optimum efficiency, if you must know,’ the Plausible Response said as the main lights came up. ‘Rather than waste time offering reassurance, I focused my attention on my interior status and the exterior situation.’

  Soundlessly, the main screen’s wide stretch flashed into life. Several subframes opened, some giving views of the Plausible Response’s hull, others showing what looked like an asteroid field, a vista of shattered rock, immense boulders, island shards and jagged splinters, along with attendant swirls of grit, gravel and pulverised dust. Harsh unfiltered sunlight cast everything in sharp contrast, the closer objects throwing dense black shadows outwards across huge distances.

  ‘We are within the pocket universe,’ said the Ship. ‘This is where the Intercessor’s coordinate data led us, a vast asteroid field exhibiting macrorandom motion. In Human terms it is half a light day across, roughly eighty-six astronomical units, and has a radiant source at its centre emitting light equivalent to the spectrum of a class-F sun. However, the source object is not a stellar mass and seems to exert almost no gravitational pull.’

  ‘No gravity?’ said Robert. ‘So none of these asteroids are orbiting the centre of … this pocket universe.’ He paused. ‘So how big is it?’

  ‘And what do your sensors say about this light source?’ said Reski Emantes. ‘Is it artificial?’

  ‘Like the rest of this involuted continuum,’ the Ship said. ‘the light source is fabricated. And to answer your question, Robert Horst, this place is almost two light days across at its widest, and unlike that spheroid system from Tier 92, it happens to be very much inhabited.’

  A succession of frames formed a grid pattern on the main screen, as well as on Robert’s. He saw vidshots of a variety of ships, some with configurations he recognised while others were completely unfamiliar. Some were moored to the surface of asteroids where installations glitter-webbed the cratered greyness, or floated in the long, dark shadows, or left a hazy trail of burnt fuel as they coasted along. Almost without exception, every vessel bore the scars of battle and innumerable repairs. Even as he watched, one of the frames showed a blunt-prowed vessel firing off flaring rockets as it swept towards a ramshackle tower only to be ripped apart by a drifting string of mines.

  ‘As my sensor arrays gathered in the data, another curious fact came to light.’

  The various ships and structures were smoothly replaced by still views of the broken surfaces of asteroids, grey, rocky features bleached and stark in the pseudo-sunlight.

  ‘I see,’ said Reski Emantes.

  See what? Robert thought, peering closely at a succession of desolate views. Then he paused and stared at one in particular, tilting his head, narrowing his eyes.

  ‘Is that the corner of a building?’ he said, pointing.

  Suddenly details began to emerge from the images, a straight line of corroded, equally placed stumps, a flight of crumbling steps curving up the side of a cracked rocky mass, a worn and pitted pipe jutting at an angle from the ground, coils of some kind of cabling lying in snaking tangles and half-buried by fine dust. These were the ruins of a civilisation, of a world, but what force could demolish an entire planet?

  ‘Preliminary assessment indicates that this asteroid cloud consists of the debris from three, perhaps four planets, all inhabited at the time of their destruction. Taken together with the vessels, the surface constructions, and the few vacsuited individuals spotted by my sensors, I have documented artefacts from sixteen separate and distinct species of which two are unknown.’

  ‘What kind of a place is this?’ Robert murmured.

  ‘There is another even more surprising element,’ said the Plausible Response.

  ‘How dramatic,’ said Reski Emantes.

  The Ship ignored the droid. ‘There are several clusters of habitats scattered throughout the asteroids, each no doubt the stronghold of some gang of degenerate thugs. But by far the largest is this one.’

  One of the frames switched to a new image then expanded to fill the screen. It was a shot of a large free-floating structure partly obscured by the endlessly drifting asteroids. In shape it resembled a squat teardrop with a dark, faintly stippled exterior. Staring at it, Robert felt a vague tickle of familiarity. Then the view leaped forward in sudden magnification and there it was in full, a Nestship of the Achorga, whose hordes had swarmed through the Solar System a century and a half ago, a pitiless assault that pushed Humanity to the brink of extinction.

  ‘Achorga,’ said Reski. ‘Semi-sentient hiver species. Predatory, relies on overwhelming weight of numbers in battle then strips defeated worlds of major lifeforms, builds more Nestships, generator pods and assault shells, then off they go again. A depressingly mindless pestilence.’

  Robert was surprised at the venom in the droid’s voice but did not mention it.

  ‘The Swarm Overminds are supposedly the equal of a mid-ranking AI,’ he said.

  ‘I doubt it,’ the droid said. ‘I bet I could run one of those Achorga Nestships with a modified toilet-cleaner bot.’

  ‘I cannot agree,’ said the Ship. ‘But whatever is in charge of this vessel has serious shortcomings.’

  A series of closeups showed parts of the Swarm vessel’s hull, images of jagged holes, melted black whorls and other battle damage, and clumps and spikes of ice clustered around slow leaks. And every frame revealed oddly crude attempts at repair or patching, mostly using material clearly scavenged from elsewhere in the asteroid cloud.

  ‘It looks completely decrepit,’ Robert said. ‘And a lot like those other ships we saw, as if they’ve been here a long time.’

  ‘Just so,’ the Ship said. ‘Here’s some of the crew.’

  A new frame expanded and showed a shot of two, no, three large insectoid creatures crouching before an arched aperture in the Nestship’s upper hull. Their six- and eight-legged appearance and segmented carapace were familiar from countless dramacasts, V-Glow spectacles and works of art, which probably accounted for his feelings of fascination. Someone from an earlier generation might have experienced a horrified chill, but then his diplomatic experience no doubt played a part in his own perspective.

  And as he looked closer he noticed that some of the Achorga had metal armour attached to parts of their limbs and torso, blobs of some malleable dull green substance enclosing every joint, and what appeared to be feathery antennae protruding from behind their heads.

  ‘Right, just to recap,’ the droid said. ‘After engaging a vermax-infested Legion Knight in that spheroid system, we encountered the Intercessor, spokesthing for the Godhead, who gives us ultra-precise coordinates and says “When you arrive, you will be taken to a gate device that will enable you to immediately descend hundreds of tiers to the periphery of the Godhead’s abode.” A verbatim quote. And here we are, yet the welcoming committee persists in not appearing.’

  Robert gazed at the views of asteroids drifting through shadows, the ramshackle ships, the eroded Nestship, and shook his head. Another de
ad end.

  ‘This place looks like a combat zone,’ he said. ‘Did they think that we’d just wander in unawares and get blown to pieces? Perhaps it’s time we retraced the course that brought us here.’

  ‘Astonishing,’ said the droid. ‘I am in complete agreement.’

  ‘A prudent proposal,’ said the Ship. ‘Which brings us to the crux of our problem, namely that the hyperdrive is not functioning.’

  ‘Do you know why it’s not functioning?’ asked Reski Emantes.

  ‘I do but unfortunately that knowledge is of no help. You recall the dislocation we experienced on crossing the boundary a short while ago? When we entered this pocket universe we became subject to its laws, physical, quantal and subquantal.’

  As he listened, Robert felt a sick quiver in the pit of his stomach. ‘So we can’t fly out of here – we’re trapped.’

  ‘What happens in the drive itself?’ the droid said.

  ‘The phase control system comes online perfectly and attempts to initialise the tesserae fields, but nothing happens.’

  ‘So if the matter-energy laws have been altered, you should be gathering experimental data,’ the droid said. ‘Shouldn’t you?’

  There was a distinctly anxious edge in the droid’s voice. Panic wasn’t, Robert reflected, a quality usually associated with droids but this one was scarcely a standard model.

  ‘In due course, I shall,’ the Ship replied. ‘Once I’ve finished assembling a small high-energy lab in my auxiliary hold.’

  Both Robert and Reski Emantes paused a moment.

  ‘You’re building a lab?’ said the droid. ‘Why not use your sensor array to analyse the dimensional substructures?’

  ‘Because whatever is neutralising the hyperdrive is also preventing any attempt to scan matter at the atomic level – all I can see is a shifting blur.’

  ‘Observational uncertainty,’ the droid said. ‘Except that the wave function blocks rather than collapsing. And with your lab experiments you aim to arrive at some conjecture or theory, allowing a redesign of the hyperdrive, yes?’