Starweb

by Warren James Palmer

  Sandpiper jumped out of the truck cabin and helped Moss gently lift the Dyason girl inside. Released of his burden, the operant turned and focused his thoughts on what was left of the Samarcian detention centre. He gathered his will and the still afternoon suddenly became a maelstrom of moving air and electrical energy. From nowhere, bolts of lightning struck the ground all about the security compound, slicing through reinforced concrete like a blade through hot butter. The prisoners and guards scattered in all directions fleeing from the sudden and incomprehensible onslaught.

  The bolts of pure energy continued to devastate the detention centre, reducing it to rubble. First, the roof collapsed inward, followed by the supporting pillars and walls. Within minutes, there was nothing left standing. The site where the Shanoa's crew and passengers were mercilessly tortured, then executed, had been flattened. Nothing remained but fused glass, warped steel, and concrete rubble.

  Moss looked at the scene of devastation once, then silently climbed into the truck. Jenson gunned the engine and they headed toward the distant mountains. The skies miraculously cleared behind them and the Samarcians picked themselves up from the dirt, shaking their heads in complete bewilderment.

  'So we're still keeping a low profile then?' Sandpiper asked innocently as he turned to look at the devastation they had caused. 'That's good…'

  'This just in!' the NBLK reporter announced excitedly on the inter-world news-web. ‘Reports are flooding in of at least one, possibly several, explosions at the military installation of Tellwore. Sited in the notoriously secretive military district of Southern Isakstan, Tellaware is where the strange vessel we reported on only a few weeks ago, was taken to be analysed.

  'As yet there are no more details, but NBLK believes there could be a connection between the two events! The involvement of Starweb corporation personnel at both incidents must be seen are more than just coincidence!

  'We will bring you more news and information as it becomes available! In the meantime, here is a word from our sponsor…'

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Samarcia—Terran calendar year 2057

  Jennifer watched as the image of Arthur disappeared into the undergrowth. It was clear she wasn't going to learn anything more from the being the ancient king had become. She felt frustrated, angry, confused, and more than a little afraid. His visitation had raised even more questions than those he had answered.

  It was clear that she had to get baby Arthur somewhere safe. She was in no doubt that the Starweb had every intention to murder her infant; they would never allow him to leave this place alive. The ancient was right, when he pointed out the threat her child posed to the murderous collection of machines.

  But where could she go? There was no transport in this 'Garden of Eden', other than her two feet, and the Starweb controlled the whole of the planet. The truth was, the disgusting crustacean drones which mindlessly served the sentient computers, could simply come and snatch baby Arthur away from her at any time. There was nothing she could do about it; or was there? Was she really as vulnerable and hopeless as she felt? The image of Arthur Pendragon had hinted otherwise. Jennifer stared into the middle distance, concentrating on controlling the panic, which welled in the pit of her stomach.

  However, the desire to flee became overwhelming when she saw the cloned creature emerge from the undergrowth at the same point at which Arthur had disappeared. Damn Nimue! Had she come to terminate them?

  Jennifer snatched her baby from the arms of Aquiline and yelled at the teenage girl, 'Get up! We've got to get out of here! That clone's come for my baby! We've got to go now! Come on!'

  Sensing the distress in its mother, the infant began to bawl and cry, but Aquiline made no attempt to move. She looked at the clone, then back at Jennifer saying, 'It's only Nimue. She's here to help us, not hurt us! Please, wait Jennifer... You mustn't run just yet…'

  Jennifer looked at the strange Heligsion girl as if she were mad. There was no way that she was going to hang around whilst the bitch tried to molest her child. She turned on her heel, clutched the distressed infant to her heaving chest and prepared to run.

  'Wait!' the thought entered her mind, 'I mean no harm to either of you! Please Jennifer, don't run away from me! I'm here to help, not hurt!'

  Jennifer paused, not because she believed the thoughts being transmitted from Nimue, but because baby Arthur suddenly stopped crying. She looked down at the infant and was amazed to see him staring past her shoulder at the approaching clone. His tiny little hands reached out to the approaching woman and he chortled merrily.

  What was going on? Why was her child so bewitched by the Starweb creature? Could she be telling the truth? Had she changed her loyalties?

  'Nimue is telling the truth Jennifer,' the gentle thought of Aquiline told her. 'She really is here to help us. Everything is as it should be—look, baby Arthur knows it is so. Please come back and sit down. There is much for us to discuss...'

  Jennifer turned, looked at Nimue as she stood anxiously before them. The motherly instinct told her to run, but something inside her head told her to trust the clone. For a moment the decision hung in the balance, but when she looked again at the intense little face of baby Arthur, she relented with a sigh and said, 'You'd better be right Aquiline, because if she's lying to us, I'm gonna rip the bitch's throat out!'

  Standing nearly three metres high, the overseer was a completely different design from the squat, crab-like drone. It stood on four insect-like legs and peered out at the world through multi-lensed eyes. Despite its exo-skeleton being covered in heavy armour plating, the massive pair of arms led to dexterous, almost delicate digits. It was undoubtedly a truly ugly, yet efficient beast. It was also a servant of the Starweb.

  The creature, bent nearly double, stomped into the interior of the wooden hut and scanned the area both with its complex eyes and bio-electronic mind. Outside, a squad of crustacean drones searched the clearing and forest beyond. However, there was no sign of the humanoid mother and child. Nor was there any sign of the human regenerated in the Starweb growth tanks.

  It was the responsibility of mainframe 3789/29 to terminate the research project into the human operants as declared by the Starweb council. However, it had decided to extract what information it could from the creature once known as Nimue, before carrying out the termination. When the cloned-humanoid disappeared, concern turned to alarm. The clone-human creature was supposed to be under total Starweb control, but it’s erratic behaviour suggested something was badly amiss. It was imperative the creature and the humans were dispatched, but it had to find them first. If the council discovered the subjects had been lost for any period, his standing as a leading Starweb member would be irrevocably damaged. Which was why he had sent the drones in to apprehend and terminate the humanoids.

  Unfortunately, the overseer was no more able to locate their presence that its master. Somehow, the individual thought patterns, which the Samarcian 'Guardian of God' used to track the test subjects, had been suppressed in a blast of interference and misleading information. It stormed about the simple accommodation in a state of what can only be described as 'frenzied agitation'.

  Concealed in a hastily constructed hideaway, located directly underneath the raised wooden platform of the living area, the two women, teenager, and infant, watched the agitated actions of the biological robot. The wooden floorboards under which they were concealed had just sufficient gaps between them to allow a restricted view of the room above.

  Aquiline and Nimue had been quite right; it wasn't too difficult to confuse the Starweb drones. The minds of the overseer and attending crustaceans were linked to the Samarcian mainframe by a narrow-band transmission in the sub-ether. Under normal circumstances, it was an effective and virtually incorruptible method of communication. However, although warned by other members of the Starweb council, mainframe 3789/29 had seriously underestimated the ability of the human operants. Its experiment was about to go badly wrong.

  Up until thi
s moment the mind-meld created by the fugitives had been used solely to hide their presence, but as the insectoid overseer reached its most agitated state, the humans struck.

  The young mind of Aquiline severed the sub-ether connection with the mainframe. Her horrific period in one of the Starweb cryogenic tanks had given her a particular talent for this task (see Third Player. WJP). In the same instant, Jennifer and Nimue, in a concert that was strangely bolstered by the infant mind of baby Arthur, entered the basic mind of the overseer. They swept aside the creature's feeble attempts to block their intrusion and the humans were careful not to damage the microprocessors that were vital to its operation. Then using the intimate knowledge gained by Nimue in her time as a Starweb servant, they reprogrammed the loyalties of the beast.

  Within minutes, the overseer was no longer a threat. Far from it, the creature was now at their beck and call, as were the crustacean drones under its command. The link with the Starweb mainframe had been permanently severed and a new link connected to the Heligsion girl Aquiline. Her talents once more appeared particularly suited to this task and Jennifer began to realise why she had been sent to help. The teenager was indeed a most unusual girl.

  As the sun began to set over the beautiful forests of Samarcia, a platoon of crustacean drones and one insectoid overseer dashed through the vegetation at a breathtaking speed. Sitting on hastily made seats, strapped to the armoured backs of the drones, were the humans; riding the crustaceans like beasts of burden. Jennifer sat with baby Arthur wrapped in swathing, bound tightly to her chest. The infants little eyes glowed in the light of the setting sun, intently watching everything that was happening with an intensity unique for a newborn child. Jennifer looked down at her offspring with a sense of wonder and awe. For the first time she truly believed the ancient apparition; the infant Arthur could really be the Starweb's greatest threat. The realisation made her both hopeful and fearful. Just what did the future have in store for this strangest group of renegades?

  It took them three days and nights to reach their destination. They would have been there sooner had they not had to take wide diversions to avoid patrols of other drones and overseers desperately looking for them.

  The Starweb's aversion to the use of high technology, particularly on Samarcia, was now an advantage for the renegades. In their desire to keep the planet at the heart of their empire pure, virtually all machinery had been destroyed. The only pollution on God's most blessed world came from the small service centres, which maintained the drones and mainframe computer. There were no longer any satellites in orbit, no space stations, or fleets of starships, this was a sterile, pure star system, the pride of the Guardians of God.

  Of course, it also meant that mainframe 3789/29 had precious few resources with which to find the fleeing humans. It had considered calling in a squadron of Webfighters to help with the search, but that of course would reveal its problem to the rest of the Starweb council. The fighters would also completely devastate the purity of Samarcia and that was simply unacceptable. The sentient computer would simply have to use the resources at its disposal. After all, where could they hide? The planet was entirely under 3789/29's control.

  Fortunately, the human women had other ideas. Guided by Aquiline, they melded minds on several occasions to throw other patrols of crustaceans off their scent. A relatively simple intrusion into their bio-electronic minds sent them scurrying off in all directions pursuing false trails. However, the energy needed to enter the entirely alien minds was totally draining, and by the time the small group arrived at their destination, they were all completely exhausted. Both mentally, and physically.

  The sun was setting once more when they finally stopped. The golden light reflected off the snow capped mountains, casting long dramatic shadows and turning whites into flame-reds. Despite her exhaustion, Jennifer couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the breathtaking beauty. It was a sight equal to anything on Earth. It was as she clambered down painfully from the back of the tamed crustacean, that she understood how the Starweb had arrived at the conclusion that humans were a species which soiled every planet they inhabited. How could any city compare to the sight she was looking at now?

  It was unfortunately true, that the human race had a tendency to corrupt places of natural beauty in the name of progress. Earth was a bad example of the march of civilisation, whilst Dyason had been (see ‘Third Player’ WP) made virtually uninhabitable by industrialization. Only the Heligsion people had managed to build a civilisation which was in harmony with nature.

  However, the imperfections of the human species didn't give the Starweb the God-given-right to attempt to exterminate the race, she was quick to remind herself. Their beliefs were undoubtedly, sickeningly perverse.

  'It should be here somewhere,' Nimue said aloud, looking at the sheer rock face and shaking her head. 'I know this is the right spot. It's just a question of locating it.'

  'I presume you mean the entrance,' Jennifer responded wearily, turning her back on the incredible Mountain View and examining the massive face which towered before them. She shivered and hugged baby Arthur closer to her breast. It was much colder up here in the mountains and although she wore extra clothing taken from the wooden hut, she was still cold. She looked down at the infant with concern, but he was still fast asleep. Mercifully, he had slept soundly for most of the three-day journey, content so long as he was with his mother.

  'I know we discussed this place as being the safest spot to hide until we can be rescued,' she continued with a frown. 'But in truth, after all these millennia, can we still really expect it to have survived?'

  'The people who built it originally planned to be there a long time; possibly forever. They were the ones left behind when the seed ships went out toward the far-flung corners of the galaxy. This was their final bolt-hole Jennifer, just as it is going to be ours. It was designed specifically to withstand any movement in the tectonic plates, no matter how severe. It was also built with a point-zero power plant. That means it will run on water and as you can see, there's plenty of that around.'

  'How do you know all this?' Jennifer demanded. Despite the fact that Nimue had been an instrumental part of their escape so far, she still found it hard to fathom the cloned version of Myrddin's sister. She was a weird bird in her original format and she was even weirder now, Jennifer thought to herself.

  'When the Starweb reprogrammed me, they downloaded the entire history of their collective. The story of this place was part of that information,' the clone replied.

  'So what happened to them—the last survivors, that is?' Aquiline asked, moving in-between the two older women and taking one of their hands each. She smiled when both Jennifer and Nimue grasped her cool fingers without even thinking about it.

  'They were deceived by a traitor in their midst. One of them was a “Judas” who promised to deliver the survivors to the Starweb in return for her own life. She was unfortunately, successful,' Nimue replied with a faraway look. 'The Starweb kept their word and allowed the traitor to live. In fact, the design of the cabin in the clearing came from the traitor's homestead. However, she only lived for a couple of years after the massacre of her people. The thought that she was probably the only human left in the universe was too much to bear; so she killed herself.'

  'That's a terrible story!' Aquiline exclaimed.

  'If only it were a story!' Nimue replied.

  'Story or not, if we don't find shelter soon, we're all going to freeze to death,' Jennifer firmly pointed out as the last rays of the sun disappeared behind the mountains. 'Now let's put our minds together and find this mythical sodding entrance!'

  Once again, the three melded their minds as one and once again, Jennifer was amazed to feel the gentle touch of an infant mind. Somehow, for reasons she could not answer, it appeared that when the occasion really demanded it, the infant Arthur instinctively added it's own barely developed mind to theirs. It was an incredible experience for her and gave new meaning to the concept of bondin
g between mother and child.

  Extending their combined sense of perception, the unique mental concert examined the side of the mountain. At first, they felt nothing but the hard, cold response of solid rock, but as they began their search pattern for the second time, they were finally rewarded. Something responded to their thoughts, something responded to their…humanity. Activated after millennia of inactivity, a probe scanned the minds of the fugitives and registered the fact that at last, there were humans walking on the face of Samarcia once more. It showed no surprise, no joy at this discovery, after all, the probe was simply part of a computer programme. However, it was a computer that was isolated and carefully shielded from the influence of the Starweb.

  This computer had but one function; it was designed to recognise human life forms and then activate the sanctuary. Which was exactly what it did now. A section of the rock face before them glowed with a bright intensity, which was reflected off the virgin snow. Then it became translucent, faded and disappeared. Where only a moment ago was sheer rock, there was now an arched entrance leading into the heart of the mountain, wide enough for a vehicle or tamed drone to pass through.

  'I believe ladies…that the hotel is open,' Jennifer said with a wide smile. 'I don't know about you, but I'm dying for a bath. I just hope the last occupants built tubs with running hot water. Shall we?'

  With that, she led them all through the archway and into the passage beyond. Followed by the tall insectoid overseer and the still tame crustaceans, the strange group disappeared into the side of the mountain.