The Orphaned Worlds

by Michael Cobley

  ‘That is the general idea.’

  ‘Good, then don’t waste time in small talk …’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Robert, ‘but there seems to be some activity out there …’

  The long-range scanners had been actively surveying and tagging major objects. Then they had spotted clusters of heat signatures, the thruster exhausts of vessels moving through the drifting expanse of planetary wreckage and converging on the Achorga Nestship. On the macrochart, an isometric miniature of the asteroid cloud, they were depicted as groups of numbered amber symbols while the Nestship was a stationary red icon positioned about a hundred klicks from the Plausible Response, a small white symbol.

  ‘A raiding party,’ the droid said. ‘Or something more serious perhaps.’

  ‘Are we in any danger?’ Robert said.

  ‘Uncertain.’ ‘Uncertain?’ said the droid. ‘Is that really the best that your antiquated components can do?’

  ‘We are not in immediate peril from the assault,’ the Ship said. ‘But our presence has not gone unnoticed. My hampered sensors picked up a group of smaller objects moving erratically towards us, trying to cover their approach behind the slower-moving asteroids. I am unable to scan for lifesigns but I have picked up faint heat signatures and several images.’

  Three frames expanded onto the screen, each showing what looked like maintenance or construction drones modelled after giant bumble-bees. Details varied but each had an upper section from which a profusion of articulated tool arms, tentacle grabs and probes protruded, and a bulging rear bearing layers of some kind of crinkled shielding with stubby thruster nozzles jutting forth here and there. Then in the upper section of one Robert noticed a translucent pane behind which was what looked like a face.

  ‘They’re suits of some kind,’ he said. ‘Exoharnesses, maybe?’

  ‘Heavily customised and stealthed power armour,’ said the Ship. ‘Using a pressurised volatile fluid as propellant to avoid creating a heat marker. Who knows how many introversile niche cultures there are in this place but these ones look like scavengers. Which is why, as we’ve been talking, we have been under way, maintaining our distance from the Nestship and using the asteroid shadows as tactical cover.’

  ‘How is that lab coming along?’ said Reski. ‘Any experimental data yet?’

  ‘Very well, and no,’ said the Plausible Response. ‘You may as well resign yourself to enforced patience – I do not foresee the lab arriving at any preliminary hypothesis for another eighteen to twenty hours. In the meantime, I suggest that you both divert yourselves by observing the Achorga Nestship assault that is about to commence.’

  The droid hovered silent and motionless for a moment then without a word turned and glided away to the command dais. Watching, Robert wondered how the Construct had managed to maintain its organisation for so long if its underling AIs had such emotive temperaments.

  On his screen, now set to holo-mode, the various groups had reached the vicinity of the Nestship. On the macrochart the amber symbols were drawing together at one side of the Achorga vessel. The long-range visual showed, between the regular occlusions of drifting asteroids, a motley collection of craft, saucers, orbs, wedges, deltas, winged, spined, armoured and lumbering or bristling with turrets and muzzles. Going by the brightly coloured emblems, there seemed to be about nine or ten factions taking part, and the grim thought occurred that if the Ship could not figure out a way back to the ordinary levels of hyperspace they would have to join one of these marauding gangs, just to have any chance of survival.

  Then aggression began. Tactics did not seem to extend to much more than a frontal assault that opened with a ragged, uncoordinated charge past the last few asteroids to where the Nestship waited. The Achorga had concealed their readiness. As soon as the first wave of attacking ships came within range, ports up and down that side of the Nestship flapped open and streams of little objects flew out. Moments later small detonations dotted the hulls of some of the raiders; a couple of them were unlucky enough to encounter clusters of these bomblets, which tore them open, triggering further violent secondary explosions.

  The attackers responded with volleys of missiles, most of which, Robert realised, were flying on kinetic energy imparted by some kind of launcher. Very few left propellant trails. Then another glaringly obvious absence struck him.

  ‘I see no beam weapons,’ he said. ‘No projectors of any kind.’

  ‘And no forcefields,’ the Ship added. ‘As if all the necessary materials and power sources for them have been used up. These denizens and their ships and habitats look to have been cannibalised and recycled and cannibalised again, yet there is not so much as a comm laser to be seen.’

  ‘How old are some of those ships?’ Robert said. ‘Is it possible to tell?’

  ‘The few analytical systems still functioning give wildly varying answers. Wear and corrosion patterns indicate several centuries, perhaps as long as a millennium, but spectrum analysis suggests just a few years, which is clearly wrong. Ah, and here come the Achorga.’

  From shadowy ducts Swarm warriors scrambled out to meet their enemies, hundreds of bull- and elephant-sized insectoids wielding spines and long whiplike weapons. As they emerged, the second wave of vessels drew near, hatches opening to disgorge mobs of suited figures, amongst which humanoid bipeds were a minority. Like the Achorga, they were armed with low-tech weaponry and Robert stared in amazement, realising that he was about to witness a close-quarters, hand-to-hand mêlée in hard vacuum.

  The battle unfolded with predictable results. Although some were better armoured than others it wasn’t long before quite a few suited forms were seen convulsing in agonised terror as air supplies escaped in frosty clouds from slashes and holes. Spikes and spines pierced and ripped, barbs tore, blades sliced, bludgeons crushed. Bodily fluids spurted and froze. Reflective faceplates hid combatant faces from view but in every frantic struggle a violent, heedless fury was starkly evident in every motion. It was a grand choreography of hate.

  One of the assault ships tried to sneak in on the flank but a volley of bomblets stitched a line of flashes across its forward section. With its prow smashed and venting, the vessel executed an end-for-end roll and dashed for cover. It looked as if the Achorga had the upper hand, their numbers sufficient to maintain a reserve of about a dozen to intercept any marauders who made it through the cordon. Most of them had gathered near one of the Nestship’s large oval entryways when a knot of bulkily suited sophonts (reminding him a little of Bargalil) flew up on crude jetpacks to a vantage point with a clear view.

  Then one of them shouldered a long tube which spat a jet of expanding gas, even as a missile leaped towards the Swarm vessel. It trailed a white tail for two seconds before impact. There was a white flash with yellow at its heart, then an eruption of hull fragments and bodies, the energy of it throwing debris in all directions. Several pieces, and even one writhing Achorga, sailed out and straight towards where the Plausible Response sat half hidden by a slow-moving asteroid.

  Sensors tracked the multiple flightpaths. The hull fragments gave off flickering glints as they spun and the Swarm warrior had become a frozen, tumbling cluster of spiny limbs, a lifeless corpse. The absolute zero of vacuum must have entered through some break in its armoured exterior, perhaps a wound from the rocket strike. The Achorga’s course chanced to closely miss several asteroids in a row and Robert thought it would find its way practically to their front door, but then it glanced off a chunk of rock the size of an aircar which sent it wheeling towards a hill-sized asteroid. After a soft collision and a gentle roll across the cracked surface, the corpse slowed to a drifting halt, kept there by the asteroid’s very weak gravity.

  ‘You’re bringing us to a stop,’ said Reski Emantes. ‘Why?’

  ‘To avoid detection,’ the Ship said. ‘A traversing object would be immediately picked up by anyone searching for the Achorga’s body.’

  ‘What about our scavenger friends?’

  ‘We l
eft them behind some way back. In fifty-three seconds I shall begin retreating to the fringe of the asteroid cloud, by way of the shadows.’

  Away through the shifting veil of jagged boulders and shattered stone, the battle for the Nestship had waned to a handful of skirmishes scattered across a grotesque diorama. Most of the attacking vessels had withdrawn, leaving scores of slow-turning corpses frozen in poses of agony, some dead Achorga drifting with their angular legs bunched inward, others locked in a death grip with a similarly lifeless adversary. No attempts to recover the bodies were being made by either side, and it now appeared that the fighting had been abandoned as the last survivors drew apart.

  ‘Senseless,’ Robert murmured.

  ‘And illogical,’ said the Plausible Response. ‘Such a level of lethal violence is not sustainable – another three or four battles like this could wipe out almost all life in this pocket universe.’

  ‘So purely by chance we’ve arrived at the tipping point of some long-standing feud,’ said Reski Emantes from the dais. ‘Is that your hypothesis?’

  ‘Not at all. There is insufficient data so I have no theory to advance.’

  ‘So what is wrong with this picture?’ Robert said. ‘Perhaps they have cloning tanks and replace their losses that way.’

  ‘A possibility yet the level of technology on show here implies that they lack the technical skills for that,’ the Ship said. ‘For the Achorga that function is carried out by the Queen but those antennae that the warriors have suggest some kind of nearcast direction. I think it likely that the Overmind in command of the Nestship has no Queen and has been forced to improvise another method of control.’

  ‘And yet you decline to hazard even a conjecture?’ the droid said.

  ‘I have detected a few anomalies yet there is still insufficient data.’

  ‘Insufficient courage, more like …’

  ‘Wait, something’s happening,’ Robert said, staring at his screen. ‘The light is starting to go dim …’

  ‘An unexpected development,’ said the Plausible Response. ‘Also, the light is shifting along the spectrum. Whoever or whatever controls that light source is filtering out everything except the blue frequencies.’

  Robert watched the vista of slaughter and stone undergo weird transitions of colour. Cracked rock surfaces and the composite materials of patched vacuum suits fleetingly fluoresced in oranges, yellows and greens. Amber gleamed and slipped across the spiderwebbed curve of a suit visor. Emerald glittered along the tapering, finely textured frontal limbs of an Achorga, outstretched as if to strike. A sheen of purple touched a serrated hook-blade whose hilt was still grasped by a three-fingered hand. Till at last it was all left in a murky, oppressive blue, like some abyss of torment beneath a darkened ocean.

  ‘Now what?’ said Robert.

  ‘I am detecting pinpoint heat sources,’ said the Ship. ‘Individually they are just within the lower threshold of my curtailed sensor range but their clusters and knots are more visible.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Everywhere – watch.’

  The shrouding blueness seemed to brighten as a new tint was added, and suddenly tiny, pale glowing motes could be seen quite clearly. In the omnipresent blue, asteroids were featureless black masses relieved by meagre scatterings of these mysterious flecks, while the battlefield’s corpses and wrecks were covered in them. On the widescreen, successive frames opened to show bright dots clustering around torn vacsuits and gashed hulls, then the perspective zoomed in and Robert saw them swarming around ghastly wounds, saw frozen blood flow and tissues knit together.

  One particular frame zoomed in on the nearby solitary Achorga – dense clumps of radiant motes rippled in multiple wounds as cracked and shattered carapace armour was straightened, joined and sealed. Then all the visible motes pulsed in unison several times and a moment later the Achorga warrior jerked into life. Robert stared, astounded.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Reski. ‘Tool molecules.’ ‘Except that these are rather more sophisticated,’ said the Ship. ‘Subatomic dynacognites, intricate devices assembled from elementary particles.’

  ‘Also known as dynes,’ Reski Emantes said. ‘Convincing demonstration of the Godhead’s ability to engineer matter. This involuted continuum is an elaborate snare; now that we’ve been lured and caught, the next stage is absorption.’

  For a moment Robert recalled a visit to Paris Zoo some years back, and that section of the hothouse set aside for exotic carnivorous pitcher plants and flytraps. Like some little bug darting through the jungles of hyperspace, we’ve fallen into a monstrous oubliette that is going to try and eat us.

  ‘I am registering multiple heat sources on my hull,’ said the Ship.

  ‘Have you deployed nanocountermeasures?’ the droid said.

  ‘Yes, but they are having a minimal effect on these dyne variants.’

  ‘What are your scenario assumptions?’

  ‘Worst case.’

  Alarmed, Robert shot to his feet. ‘What do you mean, worst case?’

  The droid Reski Emantes glided down from the command dais.

  ‘Robert Horst, listen carefully. This pocket universe is an unusually cruel, if highly imaginative, prison, seeded with dynes, subatomic devices that re-engineer, or rather degrade artefact tech levels to the rudimentarily functional. They are also clearly capable of repairing and reanimating the recently dead, but oxygen loss harms cortical tissue …’

  ‘Sensors are offline, external monitors will fail in less than one minute,’ said the Plausible Response. ‘Course set for cloud periphery, thrusters engaged.’

  ‘… so the consciousness that comes back is to a greater or lesser degree brain-damaged.’

  ‘And you’re saying that this could happen to me,’ Robert said.

  ‘Main thrusters are offline,’ the Ship said. ‘They’re into the secondary control flow. I’ll have to start isolating subsystems.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Reski Emantes. ‘And because these dynes go after the most sophisticated devices, myself and the Plausible Response will be the prime targets. All as determined by the Godhead.’

  ‘So … I’ll be here, on my own, apart from a few thousand subatomic bots dedicated to turning me into a moron …’ Robert said, dread clouding his thoughts.

  ‘Only if you get killed, so – concentrate on staying alive. Survival first, plan of action second. Ship, is the suit ready?’

  ‘Yes … yyyyeesssss, apolologies for the delay. Impaired system integration, difficulty rerouting. Here is suit.’ A ceiling panel swung open and a bulky green and grey vacsuit fell in a heap on the floor several feet away. ‘I have … I have? … yes, I have used final seconds of manoeuvring thruster control to guide us along safe route to periphery. But, butbutbut … but most systems now on basic autonomics … ah ah ah, dyne intruders have breached environmental!’

  ‘Quickly, Robert Horst,’ said the droid. ‘Into the suit!’

  ‘What will happen to me?’ he said, struggling into the heavy folds, legs and sleeves which were both too small and too big.

  ‘You should be safe – you present no threat to them, nor are you wounded – but I am only speculating. These dynes may be operating with some kind of sentient oversight, or they could be no more than the pocket universe’s antibodies.’

  ‘That’s hardly comforting,’ Robert said, sealing the faceplate, wrinkling his nose at a faint musty odour.

  ‘I could have employed various comforting lies,’ the droid said. ‘But since they would be proven false quite soon there seemed little point.’

  ‘There’s no weapon with the suit,’ he said. ‘I’m defenceless.’

  ‘Any advanced weapon would attract unwanted attention,’ the droid said. ‘There is a twist-wrench in the right thigh pocket but I wonder if we can get something else – Ship, do you have any close-quarter weapons in the armoury?’

  ‘… nom-nom-nom-nom-anom-anom anomalies detected …’

  ‘Or even just a length of pipe wou
ld be better than nothing.’

  ‘… nom-nom-nom …’

  ‘Oh dear, it seems that my sparring partner has succumbed, as shall I very shortly.’

  Robert took out the twist-wrench and hefted it in his hand. It had a satisfying weight but what use was it against subatomic invaders too small to see?

  ‘How long?’ he said, striving to steady his nerves.

  ‘Less than a minute. I have prepared a bolthole for my cognate core, a kind of last hurrah … ah, they are here.’

  Trying not to panic, gritting his teeth together, Robert glanced around but saw nothing.

  ‘I don’t …’ He paused as he noticed a faint haze shifting around one of the ceiling glows. ‘I think I see it.’

  ‘I might be able to adjust the lighting – there.’

  The bridge illumination flickered, took on a blue tinge, and suddenly the irresistible incursion was visible. A fine pale mist crept through the air, inward from ventules on the walls and the ceiling. Strands and strings stretched out ahead of the main drifts and Robert could see that alterations had already begun on the desks near the walls. The air around their monitor stations rippled as if from a heat haze and the casings started to change shape.

  ‘In a moment I shall power down and institute a full wipe. All that remains is for me to urge you to survive, Robert Horst. I regret that I was unable to anticipate this crisis.’

  With that, the droid Reski Emantes settled down on the desk beside Robert and did not move again. He laid a hand on its isoscelic housing in mute farewell. Seconds later the first wisps of the invaders in their subatomic millions brushed against his arm.

  He tried not to think what the dynes might be doing, tried not to imagine them biting and cutting into the materials of his suit’s exterior. His breathing was quick and shallow and fear kept his arms and legs locked, crushing the urge to wave his hands around. It would be like wrestling fog, only this fog had teeth.

  A swirl of fine vapour stroked across his faceplate, leaving behind a trail of tiny droplets. As he watched, the droplets flattened and spread out into filmy coin-sized patches then, seconds later, visibly evaporated, revealing small circular patterns of spirals and triangles etched into the outer surface. Alarmed, he raised his gauntleted hands, unsure of what to look for but not seeing anything that seemed out of place.