“I apologise for keeping you waiting, Captain,” Lucius said with plausible sincerity. “I’m afraid I misplaced my summoner and was walking in the gardens. I presume you have something urgent to report, given the hour.”
“I do. Sir,” Indi responded, his expression as fixed as a pressure cooker. “I regret to inform you that the ship we were pursuing has been ... lost.”
“Lost?” Lucius echoed, tilting his head to one side in a gesture of intrigued puzzlement. “Do you mean it has been destroyed? Surely not, since you were under strict instructions to see it returned in one piece.”
Indi shook his head. “We didn’t fire on it, sir - it disappeared from our sensors. We were closing on it at the time and it simply vanished. A collision perhaps? The area it was lost in contains a dense debris field.”
“Interesting. And you have checked the area for signs of wreckage?”
“I have not, chancellor. As I said, the area it was lost in is dangerous and I wished to seek instructions before endangering her majesty’s flagship.”
Good, the man had reacted exactly as predicted. Cautious with a dash of cowardice. What had the galaxy come to? “I will report this failure to her royal highness. You will await her instructions.”
Her Royal Highness did her best to appear regal as she slouched in her throne, encased in linen pyjamas that left so little to the imagination that a lesser man would have blushed. Lucius had pretended not to notice as two other figures slunk from the chamber, their clothing wrapped in bundles clutched at their chests.
“So he has lost the thief,” Victorea yawned, “which means your plan has failed.”
Lucius bowed solemnly. “I apologise for my misplaced faith in Captain Indi, your highness. He shall be removed from command instantly and a more competent successor appointed.”
Victorea rubbed her eyes and then squinted at her councillor. “No, I don’t think so.”
“But majesty, he has demonstrated gross incompetence.” This was unexpected and most unwelcome.
“Indeed, but do you not always tell me that the responsibility must be borne by the master, not the servant?”
Lucius nodded. “I do, majesty.”
“And this was your plan, was it not?”
He felt the noose begin to tighten as his mind spun, looking for a way out. “Yes, majesty.”
“Then it is your head that is at stake,” she said, wagging her finger at him as a cruel smile played across her lips. “You have two days to recover the AI and capture the thief. No, make that four days, in honour of your loyal service. That’s long enough for you to personally supervise the search. I suggest you come back with the prize, and the traitor, or you might find you don’t come back at all. I have my own people on Relentless, you see, waiting for my command. Now, I wish you luck, councillor and, if you’ve quite finished, I shall return to my bed.”
Lucius bowed again. “Majesty,” he said, before reversing out of the throne room, his mind spinning as it attempted to plot a safe course through all the possibilities that lay ahead. Just now, he could see no way out.
Dialogue
“I’m not saying anything more until you answer a few of my questions,” Hal said.
They’d sat opposite each other, both leaning forward and whispering. Arla had said that the mics inside the airlock were old and barely functional - she had no desire to please her superiors, it seemed, even though they could, with one button press, vent both her and Hal into space. And yet, despite this risk, he found he liked her.
“Well, if I do answer, at least I won’t be making it up as I go along,” Arla snapped.
Hal shrugged. “You can believe me or not, see if I care, but I’ve said nothing that’s not common knowledge.”
“Ha,” Arla said a little too loudly. The watcher in the window stopped its banging and craned as if trying to listen through the porthole. “So your story about this great galactic empire that collapsed a couple of hundred years ago is on the up and up is it?”
“Yep, everyone knows it. Except you.”
Arla watched him as he spoke. He was a reasonably good-looking young man of slight build. He had dark brown hair that was wavy enough to be pointlessly unruly, and matching eyes. His face was slightly pitted and scarred. Whatever she thought of his story, the part about his upbringing on an oppressive mining colony at least had the ring of truth to it. As for the rest of it well, only a couple of years ago she didn’t even know that such a thing as a galaxy existed. She thought of her father, living out his ignorant existence believing that what he saw, his valley, was the extent of the universe even though, being a clever man with true instincts, he knew that something wasn’t right. She missed him: in that moment, that place, she missed her father and desperately wanted to see him again. Suddenly, she didn’t care about being an engineer, she didn’t even care what the truth was about the universe outside, she only knew that her father deserved to know what she did.
“This place is called Dawn,” she said. “It’s an interstellar arc-ship carved out of an asteroid and this is mission year 1350.”
Hal’s expression froze as he processed what she said. After a pause during which all that could be heard was the humming of the filtration system and the soft pinging of the airlock door as the local sun rose above the horizon. Then he spoke: “Wow,” he said, “cool. So you’re like straight out of the historical vidramas? No wonder you speak funny.”
His mind heard the voice of ACE. ‘1350 years ago is long before the AI Emancipation Act - ask if they have robots.’
Would robots even have existed so long ago? Hal thought in response.
He imagined he could hear a sigh in his mind. It was the first Golden Age of Robotics. Many of the advances made then were lost forever during the purges that followed.
Purges?
Humans became frightened that their servants might become their masters, or that, at the least, robots might leave humanity with little purpose other than to exist.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Another sigh. So ask the girl the question. Do they have robots?
“Do you have robots here?”
Arla looked up from examining the table surface absentmindedly. “What? Of course we have robots, this isn’t the dark ages! Hold on, are you saying you don’t?”
“I’ve never seen a robot,” Hal said, feeling unaccountably ashamed. “Most people think that’s why the Sphere collapsed. We gave them freedom and they abandoned us.”
“All of them?”
Hal nodded. “Pretty much. I’ve heard stories from time to time of old models turning up, but I’ve never seen a working robot.”
“Why did they go?”
“Look, I don’t know much about this, to be honest. When you’re working in mines, you don’t get a lot of time for reading up on history. All I know is from dramas where it’s all about how they wanted to set up on their own, be their own bosses. So now there’s the Luminescence - that’s what they call their space. We don’t go there.”
“They’ve created some sort of robot empire? I’m supposed to believe that?”
Hal shrugged. “You can believe what you like, it’s the truth.” He leaned back in his chair. “I believed your crazy story, can’t see that mine is any weirder,” he mumbled.
“So, if what you’re saying is true,” Arla said, pretending not to have heard him, “how come you escaped? You said they were after you – this federation – but how did people get out here in the first place? I’ve learned enough physics in the past couple of years to know that the speed of light barrier can’t be broken, or even approached. That’s why Dawn was built – there was no other way to get to the stars.”
“I don’t know the technicalities. I’ve been taught how to pilot a shuttle, but we didn’t learn things a miner doesn’t need to know. Every star system has a Pinch Gate and that’s how we get from one to another – though I’ve never been through one. Ships don’t cross the space in between, though
I’m not sure how that works, but that’s how come your Dawn wasn’t found before now. I guess this was the system it was aiming for?”
Arla nodded. “Yes, the mission is supposed to end here – there’s a planet in this system that was going to be our New Earth. Fourth one from the sun. We should be sending out the terraformers in the next few months.”
“Terraformers? I don’t reckon the folks on Neavis would appreciate that. The planet’s not exactly a paradise, but it’s been their home for centuries.”
“So, how did you escape, then?” Arla asked.
Hal sighed. “I don’t know. The only reason I can give is that Dawn isn’t on their charts, so as soon as I began my descent, I disappeared from their sensors.”
“Still seems odd that they didn’t investigate – I mean, they’d have your last position, after all, and they’d soon see us if they navigated to it. We’re too big to miss.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
“And you still haven’t told me why you needed to escape and why they’re so desperate to capture you. This whole thing has a whiff about it, and I don’t know which parts of your story to believe and which are just to cover up what’s really going on. I mean, how do I know such a thing as the Vanis Federation even exists?”
Hal leapt out of his chair in anger but the words froze in his throat as a klaxon sounded and the airlock was bathed in a pulsing scarlet light.
“Condition Red,” said a deceptively calm voice over the comm channel. “All hands to emergency stations. Prepare for boarders.”
Relentless
Captain Indi’s skin prickled as the man approached. There was something about Chancellor Lucius that invoked an uncomfortable mix of loathing and fear – emotions he daren’t show. Lucius had a reputation for absolute ruthlessness and he had power, at least for now.
“Status, captain,” Lucius said as he glanced at the display.
They were standing on the bridge which was Indi’s domain, though the captain felt as though he was the junior ensign and the grey man beside him the senior officer. He bit back his anger. “We are within ten thousand clicks of the thief’s last known co-ordinates, Lord Chancellor. I have ordered the ship to dead slow as we approach so we can pick up any sign of debris.”
“You still believe it was destroyed?”
Indi nodded. “I do, Chancellor, it is the most logical conclusion.”
The captain regarded his bureaucratic superior out of the corner of his eye. It seemed to him that Lucius was scanning the displays as if looking for something. The man had been acting oddly since he’d joined the hunt the day before; not quite the assured, confident, politician Indi was used to dealing with. Something was wrong, something that couldn’t be explained by the theft of an object, however valuable.
Lucius turned to leave just as Navigator Bex called from her station in the pit beneath the command platform. “Captain, sensors are picking up an anomaly.” Lucius turned on his heels and peered over the rail at the display hovering above the navigator’s head.
“Report, Navigator,” Indi barked before Lucius could speak.
Bex’s head bobbed up and down as she manipulated the positional computer. “Local ladar is reporting a malfunction, but I’m not convinced. The readings are those of a large body, but there is no object in that position on our maps.”
“Analysis,” Lucius said.
“Well, sir,” Bex replied, looking up from her computer and nodding up at the display, “as you can see, the array is reporting an object, this isn’t a random glitch. It’s either a freak malfunction or a new object has entered the system undetected.”
“And which is the more plausible explanation?” asked Indi.
Bex shrugged. “Hard to say, neither seems likely, sir.”
“It’s clearly a malfunction,” Lucius said, “I suggest we continue our search using conventional methods and not sensor ghosts. Report when you have something concrete to share, Navigator - in the meantime I suggest having your equipment checked and, next time it reports an anomaly, assume it is an error before announcing that you’ve discovered a new planetoid. Resume the agreed search pattern.”
Captain Indi stepped in front of the Chancellor and pointed directly at Bex. “Belay that order, Navigator.”
“How dare you overrule me?” Lucius hissed before turning to the pair of marines standing either side of the entrance to the command platform. “Arrest Captain Indi and remove him from the bridge.”
The marines didn’t give the slightest sign that they’d heard Lucius’ words.
“Lance Corporal Schultz and Marine Yang, please escort Chancellor Lucius to the brig,” Indi said.
Schultz, the taller of the two, snapped a salute and approached the Chancellor who wordlessly fell into step beside him.
“You’re on a fool’s errand, Indi,” Lucius hissed as he passed the captain, “and the last action of your command. When her majesty hears of this...”
“She will hear of it from me, chancellor, as her trusted aide on the Relentless,” he responded with a smile, “and now we’ll find out what it is you’ve been so keen to hide from us.”
Captain Indi handed over a glass of whiskey and sat down. His cabin was sparse, as befitted a practising Buddhist, but it was the largest on the ship, as befitted his rank. Navigator Bex took the glass, raised it to her nose, and sniffed. “Wow, the real thing. Thank you, captain.”
“Nevendu, when in private Kriztina, please. It’s not as if we don’t know each other very well,” he said, smiling.
Bex returned the grin with interest. She remembered Nevendu Indi as a pompous little shit she’d first met at the academy, and it had taken many months and a decent amount of alcohol to penetrate the shell he erected around himself to find the true soul within. Sadly, the real Nevendu was almost as repulsive as the projection - there was a core of ambition and self-centredness that the man liked to believe was the counterpoint to his sensitive, artistic, soul but was, in fact, the true him.
“Nevendu, then,” she said, tilting her glass in his direction before downing it in one. “Nice.”
“I should think so, it’s an authentic scotch from the Royal Cellar,” Indi huffed.
Authentic my arse, thought Bex. As something of a connoisseur of fine liquors, the navigator had heard a number of theories concerning what “scotch” actually meant and she was certain none of them applied to this palatable but unremarkable drink. It was amber in colour and throat scouring in taste, but that was about the best that could be said of it. She noticed the captain barely sipped his. An affectation then; a way for a sociopath to be sociable. She decided to play along.
“Then might I have the honour of savouring another mouthful?” she said, smiling and holding out her glass as her captain, after a moment’s pause, slunk over to the kitchen bar and retrieved the bottle.
“I must say, Kriztina, you were very wise to confide in me. Your instructions from the palace were most interesting. And direct from the empress herself. You’re certain of this?”
Ah, so this was what it was about. She’d suspected as much.
“Yes, my family has connections very close to her majesty.”
Indi’s face spread in a reptilian grin. “Very close indeed, or so I hear. Your brother, I believe?”
“If you know this, why ask about my connections?” she snapped before adding a perfunctory: “sir.”
Indi threw his hands up as if to deflect her anger. “I’m sorry to cause offence. My humour was in poor taste. But come, Kriztina, tell me what you know of this - beyond your direct orders.”
Arsehole, she thought. I’d rather be imprisoned on an ice planet than tell you all I know.
“I know nothing other than what I’ve told you. Her majesty is suspicious of the motives of Chancellor Lucius and wishes for him to be watched. She believes he is hiding something and her instructions were for me to alert her of any odd behaviour or to advise you if I felt time was of the essence. I chose to
speak to you as soon as I began picking up the sensor anomalies and that worked out well for us both, I believe.” She took another sip of the whiskey. Yes, it was utter crap.
Her belt beeped and she focused for a moment as her implant transmitted through her jaw bone.
“The sensors have completed their sweep of the area, results coming through now,” she tapped her wrist and an inverted pyramid sprang from it, above which a cube slowly spun. She enlarged it until it was almost as tall and broad as she was and watched as a band of light swept across it, leaving behind floating objects. Nothing special, just the sort of debris she’d expect to see in an asteroid belt. And then the edge of the band illuminated the perimeter of an object much larger than anything else - this was more than mere interplanetary rubble. It resolved into a slowly rotating lozenge shape. “Good grief.”
Indi leapt to his feet and stood within the projection field staring at the floating rock. “By the gods, that’s huge. Isn’t it?”
“Relatively,” Bex acknowledged. She glanced down at the calibration grid beneath the cube. “I would say it’s at least 60 clicks by 20. Looks natural. Nickel-iron asteroid of a type common to this system, and yet it must have come from outside: there’s no way our maps would have missed something that large.”
“So that’s the answer then? The thief’s ship disappeared behind it and became invisible to our navigational computer because the asteroid is new to this system? But why would that matter to Lucius, and how would he have known?”
Bex shrugged. “I don’t know, but there’s something odd about the asteroid, if you ask me.”
“What do you mean?”
She pointed at the simulation. “It’s rotating around its long axis and, within the tolerances of our sensors, doing so perfectly, not even a wobble. And its mass is way too low for it to be nickel-iron, yet that’s what the albedo measurements suggest.”
Robot Empire: Dawn Exodus: A Science Fiction Adventure Page 6