The Orphaned Worlds

by Michael Cobley

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Chel said brokenly.

  ‘Use the talents Segrana gave you,’ the Pathmaster said. ‘And use them with cunning and guile. Accept the machine implants but use the eyes of the Seer to see and change. Observation alters what is observed.’

  Pain gnawed at Chel’s neck, arms and chest, as he looked across at poor Rory, his darting eyes and restless head.

  For Rory I will do this, he thought.

  ‘Many, many others will be spared lives-like-death if you succeed.’

  ‘But new potential is then created,’ Chel suddenly realised. ‘Potential for good and evil.’

  ‘Which those yet to be shall have to face, Cheluvahar. You can only face today’s challenges.’

  And like mist melting away, the Pathmaster was gone. Chel regarded Rory, locked into machine-made delusions, then opened his Seer’s eyes and directed their unveiling gaze inwards.

  JULIA

  Cool, blank emptiness stretching out, silent and indivisible, was all she could see.

  She remembered being carried to the virtuality chamber, limp from the sedation patches, almost laughing as they put her in the tank and hooked her up to the bioreg web. Then they’d activated the cortical interface field, and the laughing and the tank and Talavera’s face and sensation all went away.

  And then there was this, only now that she thought about it, the cool blank emptiness wasn’t quite blank and not entirely empty. An indistinct dividing line passed across it, gradually taking on definition and contrast, as well as perspective. It was a horizon, with dark grey above and something textured below, a sea, she realised, at the same time as she felt a sense of presence.

  So this is their virtuality, she thought. Is it responsive or adaptive? I wonder if I can consciously modify the context.

  She dug through her memories for childhood moments, like the summer holiday to an Enhanced residence by the sea, along the coast from Hammergard. The place had its own fenced-off stretch of beach, complete with sand and rock pools. She remembered warm sand between her toes, the cold and slippery feel of pebbles underfoot while paddling in the shallows, the acrid smell of washed-up tube-kelp. And when she opened her eyes (which suddenly she had) there it was, the shallows of a wide, placid sea and yes, she was paddling along, barefoot but otherwise wearing a blue checked shirt and yellow slacks rolled up to the knees.

  A figure was strolling along the beach towards her. The beach was a sloping expanse of even, pale sand scattered with small stones and fragments of driftwood. As the newcomer drew near, she saw that it was Corazon Talavera, attired in red and carrying a parasol.

  ‘Very pretty,’ she said. ‘Although I kinda imagined that your metacosm would be, hmm, a bit more practical, like Konstantin’s laboratory.’ She uttered a low whistle. ‘Thing is like a city, it’s huge.’

  By now the sky had brightened to an even summer blue. There was no actual sun but there was a soothing ambient glow that Julia quickly found irritating. That aside, she said nothing, just splashed her toes gently in the shallows (now dressed with rocks and pebbles), stirring up little billows of sand particles.

  ‘I liked your last escape attempt, by the way.’ Talavera chuckled. ‘Reassigning your room as storage and a storage closet as your confinement. I suppose the next stage involved the movement of large cargo cases from here to there and ending in one of the shuttles.’

  Julia gave a cold smile. ‘I expect you found my polymote.’

  ‘Uh huh, and the one on timed deactivation. See? – I know how you wily Enhanced types think.’ She shrugged. ‘But all that is behind us now. Despite all your plots and sabotage, you are here in my virtuality to work for me.’

  There were a number of clouds near the horizon. Talavera made a gentle beckoning gesture and the clouds rushed towards the shore, growing huge and dark. They all merged into one immense, sprawling bruised continent of cloud, looming and ominous. Then the ground fell away as Julia and Talavera rose into the air, passing through veils of intricate vapour to a point overseeing the great cloudscape. Only now, up close, she could see that the cloud was composed of numbers and symbols and fragments of symbols and hanks of fine tendrils linking them all together, with myriad glittery flecks strewn all through it. Out of curiosity Julia reached out to touch a nearby shining speck … and a burst of condensed data sprang into her mind, the gravity gradation effects of one planet on another in a five-planet system, full statistics laid out in tabular and graphic depictions …

  Then it was gone.

  ‘Five hundred worlds,’ Talavera said with a theatrical sweep of the arm that encompassed the vast cloud. ‘Fully detailed information on their astrogational coordinates on a specific future date, complete with true-path trajectories and velocities, in-system gravity matrix, and plenty of etcetera!’ She glanced at Julia with one of her twinkly, malicious smiles. ‘That’s only a hundred worlds each, and all you have to do is use that admirable brain to produce course data similar to your recent success.’

  Julia stared at her. ‘Course data for more missiles?’

  ‘I’ve got five hundred of them and they ain’t gonna get to their target by themselves.’

  Struck by the enormity of Talavera’s suggestion, she fell silent.

  ‘Look, it’s not what you think,’ Talavera went on. ‘This isn’t meant to be some high-profile mass slaughter – it’s all precision attacks on specific pro-Hegemony actors, monoclan nobles, military industrialists, cultural influencers, pro-war politicians, interrogators, and plenty of other unsavoury types. And you may be interested to know that most of your associates are already hard at work, without any need for a dose of the magic nano-dust. Apart from Thorold – he needed a little persuading.’

  At some unseen signal, Julia descended through the dark data cloud, returning to the shore, to the shallows of an electric sea.

  ‘You do have a choice, I suppose,’ said Talavera. ‘But there’s not much to it since you’ll end up doing the work anyway.’

  Now Talavera was dressed in black while a couple of strange snakelike things wound and writhed about her feet. They seemed to have no faces or sense organs and the closer Julia looked the more it seemed as if they were made of dense, dark smoke.

  ‘Think it over,’ Talavera said. ‘You’ve got an hour – well, subjectively anyway!’

  And with a laugh, she and her black snakes were gone.

  Some choice, Julia thought. Which is no choice at all.

  And all that stuff about targeting pro-Hegemony types just sounded like a calculated lie that, coupled with the remark about Thorold, was supposed to weaken her resolve. Yet she felt like smiling, or even skipping along the shore and kicking up the water.

  Because it now looked very certain that they hadn’t found the very last polymote, which she had hidden in her hair before they came for her.

  Soon it will reactivate, she thought. Then we’ll see who really has a choice!

  THEO

  He was on the bridge of the Starfire when it entered Darien orbit. Sensors were completing their sweeps of the planet’s extra-orbital sphere, but many shocking details had been apparent from the moment they’d dropped out of hyperspace at the edge of the system. The huge Brolturan battleship, the Purifier, had been destroyed by a thermonuclear weapon – some of the twisted wreckage was still circling the planet, hurled along widely differing orbits by the force of the explosion. There were also signs of a second similar attack, but the attributable debris did not indicate a similar obliteration.

  Theo knew that this debris had to be from the Earthsphere ship, the Heracles. Any strategy to move against Darien would logically involve neutralising such warships, but it did raise the question of the Heracles’ whereabouts. Had it retreated to somewhere else in the system, or did it somehow escape into hyperspace? Or had a failing orbit sent it plunging down into the atmosphere, burning up as it did so? He shuddered at the thought.

  Then information on planetside comms traffic began arriving at the ta
ctical station. The tactical officer, Berg, tidied it a little before sending it to Captain Gideon’s station and to the auxiliary set up for Theo’s use.

  There were transmission frequencies, ground coordinates, encryption levels, and expandable transcript summaries. Many were in Anglic, or Anglic variants, others were in Brolturan–Sendruklan (and had been translated), but there was a swath of others in several other languages, mainly Henkayan, Gomedran, and Kiskashinan, according to the onscreen commentary. As he read through some of the transcripts, the appalling outlines of recent events emerged, leaving him feeling angry and impatient.

  ‘I’ve known nothing like this in my time,’ Gideon said. ‘A few generations ago the Dol-Das-ruled Yamanon suffered a wave of divine sieges, mostly taking place within this or that solar system. Interstellar divine sieges are rare, successful ones rarer still. But these zealots call themselves Followers of the Spiral Prophecy, a very new splinter-faith of the Father-Sage religion.’

  Theo stared at the screen and shook his head.

  ‘The Winter Coup was nothing like this,’ he said. ‘Not even the New Town Successions caused this kind of havoc. If only I knew what’s happened to my nephew …’

  ‘Excuse me, Major,’ said Berg. ‘Is his surname Cameron?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  The tactical officer gazed at his holodisplay. ‘Right, I’ll slot that name into the filters. I’m sure I saw a few entries with that name … yes, here’s one: “… Varstrand’s Har flew Greg Cameron and some others to Giant’s Shoulder for God knows why, and no one’s heard anything from them since,” and the reply is “The place is crawling with machines now – I’m not surprised,” and it then goes on about refugee camps south of Lake Morwen …’

  Theo sighed, trying to grasp the storm of conflict and confusion that had descended upon his world, toppling all certainties.

  ‘Captain,’ he said. ‘Can you tell when these fanatics began their invasion?’

  ‘Radiation and ionisation analysis puts it at nearly two days ago,’ said Gideon.

  ‘The Brolturans would not be pleased to lose such a vessel, I’m thinking, yet no sign of reinforcements.’

  ‘Retaliation will come,’ said Gideon. ‘The Brolturans and the Hegemony are very likely assembling a large task force with the aim of enforcing a major interdiction.’

  ‘Sounds serious,’ Theo said.

  ‘It is very serious – all inhabitants are documented down to the gene map, then tagged, usually with ankle clasps, but sometimes with neck ones …’

  ‘Sorry to break in, sir,’ said Berg. ‘But the filter has just flagged up a mention of Greg Cameron … okay, it says, “… picked up my passengers, ja, and a risky one, the big man. He said that Cameron got through with the cargo, which I say makes me feel better about having my boat ripped up, hah!”, and the reply is, “How soon will you be back?”, and he says, “Maybe five hours, if I must be the safety pilot, eh?”’

  Suddenly Theo felt energised. ‘That man is a zeplin pilot – can you raise him, contact him?’

  ‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ said Berg, fingers working at his holodisplay control interface. A moment later he said:

  ‘Calling unidentified vessel, this is scoutcraft Starfire – please respond.’

  ‘Starfire, eh? Never heard of you, which makes you unidentified, eh? Well, this is the sturdily built and expertly flown zeplin Har. How are you doing there?’

  Theo laughed out loud. ‘Hey, Varstrand, you old spanner shaker – still flying that leaky gasbag, eh?’

  ‘Well, well, so either my ears have gone mad or I’m hearing the wheezy voice of Theo Karlsson. I hear you flew up to Nivyesta, but now you’re back to help us all, maybe, eh?’

  ‘That’s more true than you know, but first I need to know about my nephew, Greg – is he safe, do you know?’

  ‘Hmmph, not so sure. You should talk to the man who knows …’ There were scratching, clicking noises, then a different voice spoke, with a Rus accent. ‘Hello, Major Karlsson?’

  ‘Yes – who is this, please?’

  ‘I am Alexandr Vashutkin – I was the last one to see Greg alive.’

  Theo swallowed, suddenly sombre. ‘What happened, exactly?’

  ‘I cannot go into details – this connection is not so secure. All I know is that he gained entrance to the Brolturan building while I did what I could to draw off the attention of a pack of combat droids. But eventually I had to escape, and I was lucky enough to find a hiding place and then to get picked up by these guys …’

  ‘I see,’ said Theo, then recalled something. ‘Mr Vashutkin, are you the same Vashutkin who was in Sundstrom’s cabinet?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I am. Can you come to Tusk Mountain? – we have a base there. Perhaps I can persuade you to join us. I know that your experience would be invaluable.’

  Theo glanced at Gideon, who smiled and nodded.

  ‘Yes, Mr Vashutkin, I should be able to find it. I’ll be bringing some more bodies to help, so I look forward to meeting you.’

  ‘Already you are making the difference, Major! Be seeing you soon.’

  The line went dead.

  ‘So it appears that there is some kind of organised resistance,’ said Gideon. ‘This Vashutkin must be resourceful to evade a pack of combat mechs.’

  Theo nodded but his thoughts were going over what the Rus said about Greg. He must have been on a mission involving that damned warpwell, and if he managed to reach it safely, who knows where he could be? The disappearance of Ambassador Horst was for ever seared into his memory.

  Ah, Greg lad, he thought. What have you got yourself mixed up in?

  THE CONSTRUCT

  The body lay on a white C-table, which sat out on a balcony overlooking the stepped terraces of the Garden of the Machines.

  ‘He looks so peaceful,’ said Rosa, one of the taller military variants. ‘Which is fitting after what he went through.’

  The Construct made no reply as it continued the autopsy scan. Real-sample blood and tissue biopsies would soon be complete but they were not expected to reveal any divergence from the earlier resonant field scans.

  ‘Multiple puncture wounds by lesser xezri barbs,’ it then said. ‘Each barb delivers 0.5 milligrams of synaptic inhibitor designed to pass through membranes, spread and shut down all control and distributed functions. The inhibitor has been isolated and analysis shows no evidence of modification.’

  ‘Someone must have uncovered a pre-Forerunner biocache,’ Rosa said. ‘Perhaps something left over from the Zarl Empire. I was reading about them earlier.’

  ‘Documents concerning the Zarl are inherently suspect,’ the Construct said. ‘As is any file claiming to date back longer than a million years or more. Mischievous minds have lain behind many a believable hoax …’

  Rosa straightened. ‘You have an important visitor approaching. I shall leave.’

  ‘It is not necessary that you depart.’

  ‘I think that my presence would be unproductive.’

  Rosa moved away, leaving by a small side door. Moments later, the main balcony access sighed open and someone else entered and came over to stand on the other side of the C-table.

  ‘He succeeded in his task,’ said the Construct. ‘He was brave, resourceful and determined. You should be proud of him.’

  Robert Horst looked down at the body that was like his body, with a face that was his own.

  ‘I’m not sure what to think,’ he said. ‘Although there’s the feeling of having lost a brother, almost.’ He closed his eyes, shook his head. ‘Which is foolish.’

  ‘Imprinting your mind on one of my semiorganics was the simplest, quickest way of retaining your skills and knowledge for the Zyradin mission, a crucial and pressing matter now successfully concluded.’

  ‘I agree that I was in no condition after you rescued me from that pocket universe,’ Robert said. ‘But I still feel guilty.’

  ‘From my observations, it seems that guilt is an overbearing emotion,
especially since it was I, not you, who employed this life-form this way.’

  ‘Guilt is powerful,’ Robert said sombrely. ‘It can have strange effects.’

  ‘Ah, so we come to your own mission to the region of the Godhead,’ said the Construct. ‘I have read the concise, even compact, report that you so kindly wrote out for me. Now I am wondering if you are ready to give me a verbal account, subject to my own interjections and requests for clarity.’

  Robert regarded the lifeless form’s peaceful face, and took a deep breath.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m ready.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This being the first time I’ve written a proper middle book of a trilogy (well, Shadowgod didn’t really count since Shadowmasque took up the story 300 years later), I feel kinda apprehensive. But hopefully it does what it’s supposed to do, and if it does it’s mainly due to the skilled perception of the editorial team at Orbit, specifically their point-woman Bella, whose graceful persistence and illuminating insight got me thinking and rethinking about how the story’s balance should play out. Thanks also go forth to Dave W. whose rock-steady, eagle-eyed scrutiny always keeps me attentive to the Detail (in which is the devil, I’m told).

  A joyful brandishing of the sombrero goes out to John Parker and John Berlyn, my agents at Zeno, to Joshua Bilmes, to the team at Thomas Schluck, to my German publishers Heyne and my French publishers, Bragelonne. A big Dia Duit to Gary Gibson over in Taiwan, to Stewart Robinson in Musselburgh, to Ian McDonald in Belfast, to Eric Brown, Ian Sales, Jack Deighton, Neil Williamson, Keith Brooke, Debbie Miller, the whole GSFWCers, the Edinburgh Writers Group, to Ian Whates, to Pete Crowther, to Trevor Denyer, to the indefatigable Charlie Stross, to Cuddles and Scottish conrunners everywhere. And a salute to Graeme Fleming, progmetalmeister of the Southern Domains (AKA Paisley), and a tip o’ the hat to Ronnie and Katie, to Spencer and Adrian, and absolutely every metal fan in Glasgow and beyond.