The Orphaned Worlds

by Michael Cobley

  Then a new development – one of his remotes, now airborne, saw a shape burst out of the dense foliage further back and begin racing after the ailing vessel. It was a type-D mech. Had the auto-factory managed to bypass the transceiver lockouts and signal its original, base-design models to come to its aid? This raised the grim possibility that the autofactory had also established communication with the Brolturans.

  Another type-D came plunging down the valley side, and a type-E appeared at the valley’s far end. And the autofactory slowed, its aft slewing round against the undergrowth, causing another cascade of pulverised greenery. The vessel tilted over on one side as it ground on down the valley floor, at last slowing to stop at the end of a great dark trench of ripped-up soil. Its bow doors split, starting to open. The Legion Knight knew that its type-R was inside, fighting its way to the AI core. A moment later the first type-D reached the gaping access ramp and leaped up onto it, got a couple of paces, then jolted to a halt before keeling over. The next two, and a fourth appearing from the southern slope, followed the same doomed approach, clearly driven by an overriding imperative from the autofactory sentience.

  For several seconds all was still in the valley. Then the type-R emerged, walking with its one leg and the opposite arm lengthened with some kind of metal stilt. The other claw hand tossed a knot of fibrous cables and snapped-off components onto the ground, proof of the AI’s demise. Satisfied for the moment, the Legion Knight sent the airborne remote down to find a dataport on the mech’s carapace: from the visual feed he could see where the earlier crushing blow had caved in that part of the upper torso covering the comm-relay node.

  A dataport was found, a link was established. The Legion Knight swiftly scanned the autofactory’s final activity logs and was greatly relieved to discover that no contact had been made with the Brolturans.

  he thought.

  As these thoughts came forth, the remotes were taking full control of the autofactory’s comm systems and were quick to alert him to a priority message now coming from the Hegemony tech station near Hammergard. The Legion Knight studied the message and was at first surprised by the rashness of it then pleased when the advantages and possibilities became apparent.

  The Brolturan ambassador had just ordered a massive invasion of the hinterlands, and was emptying every garrison to carry it through. Such an opportunity was not to be missed, especially since his success would ensure the return to his integrity of his Scions, their complete, irrevocable amalgamation into his being.

  ROBERT

  In the recurring dream, Robert was standing in a vast field of poppies with Reski Emantes hovering not far away. The droid then grew a fringe of red spines at its broad end and a razor-filled mouth at the narrow apex. As he stared around him at the poppies, Reski Emantes lunged at him, biting into his chest, opening up the ribcage, an assault that seemed somewhat lacking in pain. The droid then began removing a series of items, heart, lungs, a child’s book, the intersim device, a bundle of whirlyglows, his brain …

  When the droid dragged out that blue-grey organ with slender pincer-arms, Robert made a grab for it. But Reski snatched it away and tossed it into an upright locker, along with the rest. Everything went in it, vitals and veins, muscles and bones, nerves and arteries, till the locker slammed its door, put out legs and walked off with Reski Emantes by its side. Without bones, Robert slumped to the ground, and soon after rain began to fall and a river swept in to carry him away to a beach. There, seeds took root in him, growing into plants and bushes, filling out his empty body with foliage until he could stand again and walk back along to the poppy fields, where he met the droid Reski Emantes, who not long after grew a fringe of red spines …

  ‘Robert …’

  … bit into his chest, opening up the ribcage …

  ‘Robert! It is time to wake up.’

  … heart, lungs, a child’s book, the intersim device …

  ‘Robert, we will have to use an adrenal stimulus. Be ready.’ … vitals and veins, muscles and bones …

  Suddenly, instantly awake, he jackknifed into a sitting position, chest reflexively gasping for air. The couch he was in dampened his leg movements and the upper section smoothly angled up to support his back. A bout of coughing made his eyes water, blurring his sight, exacerbating the pain that he thought he could feel in his chest …

  Memories of the fight on board the Plausible Response flashed through his mind’s eye, his skirmish with the scavenger, the Achorga attack from beneath, the bloody spike …

  ‘You are fully healed, Robert, courtesy of biofield reconstruction.’

  The Construct was standing by the couch, metallic hourglass torso and rodlike arms giving off a mirrored sheen without highlights or pinpoints. An ambient milky-blue radiance lit the room, an austerely furnished space possessing a wooden shelf unit, empty apart from a few books, and a movable bed tray on which a potted plant sat. Robert then made himself look down at his chest, unfastening the buttons of a thin pale green garment to reveal only a small, faint and shadowy mark. There was no pain – he breathed in and out deeply to make sure – and he lay back, smiling faintly.

  ‘History repeats itself,’ he said. ‘Only in the sense that you have again incurred physical damage,’ said the Construct. ‘You are fortunate that the Plausible Response’s message about the Rosasim prompted me to follow you to this place.’

  Awful memories came back to him.

  ‘So how did you rescue us? That pocket universe – the Ship said it was artificial. Is that true?’

  ‘Quite correct, Robert. It was designed to be an unusually cruel trap, one that keeps its captives alive and provides them with enough technology to engage in savage, barbaric battles. The molecular machines, those dynes, are its regulators, keeping the tech level down and bringing the prisoners back to life. As for how we retrieved you, I was able to persuade the mystic Sunflow Oscillant to join my expedition. His peculiar talents enabled us to first send probes through to determine your whereabouts, then to cross into the pocket cosmos while maintaining our causal state from outside. The Bargalil mystic was only able to negate the local conditions for a short while but it proved sufficient.’

  Robert nodded then sighed. ‘I am sorry, Construct. Our mission seems to have been a failure. Perhaps my own conduct was to blame and brought this tragedy down on us …’

  ‘A highly doubtful scenario,’ said the Construct. ‘The creation of macro-artefacts like that universe is energy-intensive and demands concerted effort over a long period. There is no way to know who made it, although it seems clear that it serves the Godhead’s purpose, namely the elimination of anyone determined to track it down. The presence of the vermax in the Legion Knight that attacked you in the Urcudrel Seam suggests a disturbing connection. Whatever influence the Godhead might have with the Legion of Avatars, it is clearly working against us, or at least actively attempting to obstruct us. So no blame attaches to you.’

  ‘I am not entirely persuaded, but thank you,’ said Robert. ‘What of Reski Emantes and the ship’s sentience – did anything of them survive?’

  ‘Reski is a cunning sentience – it copied its mind-image to a structured lattice crystal encased in layers of lead and iron, keeping it well hidden from the dynes and thus easy to reconstitute. The ship’s cores were less well protected so little of its persona was left. The recovered logs and backups have been incorporated into the AI of the ship we are currently aboard, the Absence of Evidence, my deep-range flagship.’

  The Construct turned to a nearby section of wall which immediately transformed into a viewscreen showing a large, delta-shaped craft of strange design. It was composed of scores of shiny golden odd-shaped modules held together by a webby framework of struts
underpinned by pipes and transit conduits. Robert regarded it, feigning interest while his thoughts wound and circled unceasingly around the one topic that hung over everything else. There was no point staying silent – he had to know.

  ‘Construct, the Rosa simulant sacrificed herself to defeat the Legion Knight that ambushed us,’ he said. ‘The Plausible Response apparently made a recording of her mind beforehand, and … I was wondering if that survived, and if you brought another Rosa with you.’

  He could hear the weakness and desperation in his own voice and he hated it.

  ‘The Plausible Response gave much more consideration to the Rosa mind-image than to its own, and yes, a new Rosa did accompany me. She is waiting outside and looking forward to speaking with you. But first you should be made aware of recent events on Darien.’

  So Robert learned of how the Brolturans consolidated their position, how Kirkland became president and how he had an AI implanted, how the Hegemony emissary Kuros had a mech factory brought in to combat the Human resistance out in the wild, and how Kuros’s technicians were slowly but surely penetrating the warpwell’s defences.

  ‘The Sentinel of the warpwell is an artificial sentience made by the Forerunners to maintain the well’s integrity and to defend it against all manner of adversaries. At the time, it represented a scientific pinnacle, the crowning achievement of an interstellar culture that possessed nothing like the tiernet, although communication was commonplace. By today’s standards, however, it is somewhat rudimentary and its inadequacies present a serious problem.’

  ‘I’ve been told that you were an ally of the Forerunners,’ Robert said. ‘Was your own inception a leap forward from the Sentinel’s?’

  The Construct had moved to the foot of the bed and was examining the pot plant on the adjustable tray. The machine extended a pair of delicate clippers from the end of one polished metal arm and carefully snipped away a fragment of twig.

  ‘My initial configuration was rather different from my current aggregate. I was designed as an experiment in pseudo-sentient synchronisation, an attempt to create a consensual cognitive awareness out of several Sentinel-like entities. It failed at first and continued to fail, no matter how many different problem-solving, para-intuitive, self-adaptive modifications were incorporated. Until one night I heard music being played in the vault where I was kept. I was the accidental audience for a group of cleaning menials who, during a meal break, played instruments and sang for their own enjoyment. Usually my receptors were deactivated after dark, but not that night, and when they played, all of those jostling subentities paused to listen in unison, transfixed by the exuberant melodies and harmonies. That was the seed for the melding that became me.’

  ‘How strange,’ Robert said. ‘I would have expected music to be one of the first things to be used as a stimulus.’

  ‘My creators came from a species of very serious scientists and theorists for whom music was little more than a frivolity.’

  ‘So how would you characterise those who made the Sentinels?’ ‘They were very different from my makers, great lovers of life and the sensations of life,’ the Construct said. ‘But the design and building of the warpwells and the Sentinels was regarded as a serious task on which everything depended and for which time was limited. Despite the sacrifice, the suffering, the massive waste of worlds and peoples, their work and their genius was vindicated and the Legion of Avatars was imprisoned. Only a small handful of Sentinels came through that titanic struggle and of them only one still functions, still upholding its integrity of purpose.

  ‘But it is not enough. It is now only a matter of time before Kuros’s technicians break down the last protections and barriers and gain control of the warpwell. If that happens, the Hegemony could accidentally release the Legion’s survivors in their millions from their prison in the depths of hyperspace. And even if they manage to avoid such a mistake, they will surely use the tiers of hyperspace as a way to expand the boundaries of their empire and destroy any who oppose them.’

  Robert frowned. ‘But I thought you were going to divert some of your own forces to Darien to seize the warpwell and evict the occupiers.’

  ‘That strategy depended on our reaching an accord with the Godhead, but that has now been thrown into doubt. The Godhead’s motives have always been a matter of conjecture yet its powers are said to be daunting. Several very old races claim to have been raised to conscious sentience by one or another of the proxy entities it created far back in the early period of galactic civilisation. There are even rumours that it is a survivor from a deceased universe, now sunken into the upper strata of hyper-space. The legends of several tier civilisations claim that before their descent into the tiers the Godhead had created entire solar systems and moved others into immense stellar patterns.’ The Construct snipped another twig. ‘Yet the Godhead has never overtly taken sides in any conflict so it may be that I am being overcautious. However, there have been other developments that prevent me from committing any portion of the Aggression to the liberation of Darien.’

  ‘What developments?’

  ‘Serious developments, Robert Horst. The flaw in my strategy was and remains lack of reliable data as to the Godhead’s intentions,’ the Construct said. ‘Which is why I have dispatched another agent, an organic, on a more resolute reconnaissance into the depths to find out.’

  Robert felt oddly disappointed on hearing this, almost as if part of him thought that such a task should have been his.

  ‘I hope your agent is up to it,’ he said.

  ‘He is highly proficient and versatile, an Egetsi biped, similar to Humans. I sent it in one of my attack scouts with a good droid for company. Hopefully, in a matter of days, I shall have something approaching the truth.’ The Construct seemed to consider the small pot plant a moment, then the clippers melted back into its rod arm. ‘Before then, however, the question of the warpwell and the occupation of Darien must be faced. There is a mission to be undertaken to a place of great danger, to recover an object that is vital to the defence of Darien. It would be a demanding mission – would you be interested, Robert?’

  ‘Definitely,’ he said without hesitation.

  ‘Your enthusiasm is creditworthy, but I am not the only one who needs to be persuaded of your suitability. You should talk to Rosa first, then make your final decision.’

  As the Construct finished speaking, a door opened and a woman entered.

  Robert stared, confused at first until he studied her features and recognised the alertness in the eyes, the shape of the nose, the form of the chin, the determined set of the mouth. It was Rosa, only older, in the first bloom of maturity, a woman.

  As the Construct quietly left, she stopped at the foot of the bed.

  ‘Hello, Father.’

  His eyes widened. ‘Are we being formal, Rosa?’

  She gave a small, nervous smile. ‘Were you expecting me to sound like a … teenager?’

  ‘Was that wrong of me?’

  ‘Perhaps not, since that was the other Rosa’s self-state.’ She folded her arms, a familiar gesture. ‘And that is the image I would have had I assimilated her mind-image in full. I decided not to, instead holding her memories as accessible data rather than merging them with my macropersona …’

  Her voice trailed off a little and Robert thought he detected uncertainty.

  ‘So, are you happy – being older?’

  She frowned. ‘The Construct’s persona-modelling subsentience is very sophisticated and after considering the previous Rosa’s experiences I decided that different characteristics would best suit this mission, like increased upper-body strength and improved muscular response. Happiness is less important than competence and focus, and I am more resilient and versatile than the previous Rosa …’

  ‘Apparently we are to recover a vital object …’

  ‘There is no “we”, Father,’ she said. ‘This mission is too dangerous for an unaugmented Human. The Construct is sending me to an Achorga nestworl
d to track down and retrieve an entity called a Zyradin, then take it to Darien’s forest moon. The Zyradin were artificial lifeforms designed by the Forerunners to merge with distributed sentiences like Segrana, giving them conscious control over all planetary biomass and energies. Awakened, a fully conscious Segrana can deal with the occupiers and evict them from both Darien and the moon, Nivyesta. Father, if the Construct has asked you to go with me I would respectfully ask that you turn him down. The dangers are considerable.’

  For the last couple of sentences her gaze slid away to the wallscreen with its image of the ship, Absence of Evidence.

  ‘I see,’ Robert said. ‘So you’re worried about my well-being.’

  ‘Of course, but there is also my effectiveness to be considered. Under conditions of great peril it would be impaired if I had to ensure your safety as well as my own.’

  Robert shook his head. ‘If this undertaking is so dangerous why doesn’t the Construct send a fleet of combat units off to take care of it?’

  ‘Several reasons,’ she said. ‘A planetary assault against an Achorga nestworld would rouse every hive against us, perhaps even draw in other nestworlds. Then the unpredictable consequences of military action could make it hard to locate the Zyradin, and resistance would stiffen if the enemy reasoned out the focus of the attack. The Zyradin might be captured or even destroyed if that happened.

  ‘Another reason is that the Construct’s resources are under pressure. Ships of the Vro and the Shyntanil, two Abyss civilisations once thought occluded, have attacked a number of the Construct’s outposts. The Aggression is being deployed in response.’ She turned to face him. ‘Which is why I should undertake the mission myself. I have the skills and the physical characteristics that will ensure success.’