The Path to Loss (Approaching Infinity Book 4)

by Chris Eisenlauer

  “Mr. Scanlan, I know it’s only been twenty-one hours since planetfall, but we have the terrible sense that with each ticking second, the possibility for return is reduced. Are you no closer now to a solution than you were before?”

  “We are nearly ready, Minister. I have worked out the calculations and the containment apparatus. What we have been waiting for is power. Power is the key to this lock. The lens gets a steady supply from the planet’s core, but that is to maintain base functions. If my specifications have been adhered to, then the Palace should have built up enough stored power to initiate and sustain the necessary reaction.”

  Scanlan checked a monitor. “Ah, yes. Mere minutes now, Minister.”

  “Where do you want me, Scanlan?” Jav said.

  “You’ve been very good to indulge me, General Holson,” Scanlan said. “I truly do appreciate your presence. Without it and the peace of mind it has provided, I fear this work might never have been accomplished, but I think you can return to your Gran now. I think our Secret Weapon has removed the giant reptile as a threat, at least temporarily, which has been sufficient.”

  Jav nodded, jumped, and was flashing back to Gran Mid’s brow by way of AI. In mid-flight, he turned reflexively, responding to the sound of crumpling metal from behind. He came to a jarring halt in the air and gawked.

  Gran Mal canted, tipping down due to its crushed or missing left foreleg. Jav could still see the lens and Scanlan near it, but Scanlan was undergoing a radical change. His burnished bronze body rippled, folded in on itself, popped at several joints, and became a jagged, compressed sphere. Jav had gotten half way to Gran Mid, which was too far for Artifact communication either way. He scanned the area, but could see nothing. Except that he could see something. From his vantage point, he could see trees bent at strange angles, then righting themselves, then other trees bending similarly. He focused on this for a moment and summoned forth Rommel, his lieutenant in his most elemental form, that of a superior quality pole sword. There were no humanoid skeletons here on this planet to make use of Salavar Grummel’s Secret Track Pole Sword, but Rommel would stand in for the skeleton army.

  Jav held the pole sword at his shoulder and calmly began calculating. Much of Scanlan’s equipment was suffering the same fate as the Shade himself, but Jav didn’t allow that to bother him. He wound up and launched the pole sword, applying calculations to the calculations already being executed, turning Rommel into a lance of light that was visible only for a split second. Nothing—nothing—could have turned the pole sword away. And nothing did.

  Rommel pierced through something that didn’t appear to be there at all. Black smoke tinged with red rose in a thin stream from the ground where Rommel had finally struck and stopped. A wail of pain came a fraction of a second later, and Jav suffered a moment of near-panic for what he saw, more for the question it raised about his sanity than for the threat it might portend. He thought saw not one, but several giant reptiles, perhaps twenty. All of them matched the general outline of yesterday’s antagonist and were spreading through the forest, moving towards Gran Mal, but just as soon as they became visible, they disappeared again. He shook his head to clear his vision. Was he seeing things? Better to assume not.

  He allowed Rommel to dissipate. He could always summon the pole sword again if necessary. He was torn, though: should he go for Gran Mid, or hurry alone to see what might be done for Scanlan and their chances of returning to the present?

  He grinned behind his skull helmet. It was no choice at all, really. He was back to the lens in seconds, tending to the kernel of twisted metal Scanlan had become. And, to his surprise, Scanlan still lived.

  “We must protect the lens at all costs, General Holson,” Scanlan cried through his Artifact.

  “Understood,” Jav said, moving toward some of Scanlan’s remaining machinery. He sifted through pieces and found what he needed. He set a communications unit upright, activating it in the process. A holographic screen sprang into being behind him. He turned to address Witchlan already framed and demanding a status report.

  “Minister, please dispatch Gran Mid to our present location. Have the Lightning Gun operators scan for thermal and sweep—”

  “No!” Scanlan shrilled. “I can initiate the necessary reaction in minutes—return us to our time—but we need that power.”

  “Scanlan, have you looked at your equipment?” Jav said. “Have you noticed your own condition?”

  “It doesn’t matter. My brain and the Creation Cogs are intact. Unscathed, in fact. I am not without my means, General Holson. Gran Mal will do most of the work, and I can recreate on the fly any of the components necessary. The calculations and apparatus design were the hard parts. Those are done.

  “Thermal, you said?” Scanlan said.

  “Yes, I’m pretty sure the forest is filled with more like the reptile we encountered yesterday. The fact that we’re having this conversation leads me to believe that none are on the same level as that one, but we can’t be sure that he isn’t among them.

  “Oh my, yes,” Scanlan said. “The forest is fairly teeming with inordinately large reptiles. And that one is too close.”

  From the sphere of tangled bronze, a liquid beam of the same color shot forth. It passed out of the clearing, through the trees, and painted the air nearly a hundred meters away and twenty meters up from the ground as if it were a waiting canvas. The beam’s payload resolved itself into a fine mesh network of viral machines, which bit into flesh, consumed it, used the sustenance for self-replication and to spread. There was a loud crash and something very large, only partially defined by the machine virus, writhed around on the ground.

  Jav thought that this might have been what he had struck with Rommel, but couldn’t be sure. He addressed Witchlan on the holographic screen again.

  “Send Gran Mid. And Hilene, if she’s able. Set up a channel to the Lightning Gun operators to await Scanlan’s order.”

  Witchlan didn’t reply. Jav didn’t need him to. If not for the trees, Jav would have used AI to expedite Gran Mid’s journey, but there were too many in the way, and if his eyes hadn’t deceived him, he couldn’t afford to be distracted just now.

  Jav recalled Rommel as the pole sword to his hand and cocked it for another throw. This time his target was visible, but just before he could loose the weapon, images of atrocities—that he’d committed—filled his mind. Violence was a way of life for a Shade of the Viscain Empire, but what accompanied the familiar images was an unfamiliar sense of guilt and wrong-doing. Many years ago, he justified the Empire’s progress and the part he played in it through rationalization. There would always be those quick with the food chain analogy, but for Jav it was a contest of skill, fair only insofar as allowing the enemy a chance to fight. Recently, he’d abandoned this view, though. The Empire was right because the Empire was above retribution. The Empire was judgement, at least until the universe said otherwise, and though it didn’t seem to be saying so now, that iron sense of entitlement forged over the last hundred years was becoming rusted and worm-eaten by his own guilt. Dread crushed down on him like a weight, threatening to permanently squeeze out all rational thought, and then immeasurable force bore down on him, indiscernible from the psychological press, threatening to pop his joints and squeeze his organs out through skin that was ready to split, Dark or not.

  “Jav!”

  Hilene’s voice snapped him back to his senses. In the half-moment before responding to the telekinetic assault, he noted the pole sword, curled and useless, but still clutched in his hand. He cast it away and made eye contact with the now completely visible reptile as he began calculating his defense. There was no doubt now, that this was the dyna sore they’d encountered the previous day. He didn’t fear it or its TK. All he had to do was be cautious and not get caught off guard.

  Hilene had passed him and was attempting to attack the dyna sore, but without any success. Jav cocked his head, watching as she initiated the Ten Deaths, but every time she came c
lose, the dyna sore skipped through space, teleported just a few meters away, always out of reach, sometimes in fugue patterns that were hypnotic.

  The dyna sore ignored Hilene, its defense having become automatic somehow, and addressed the infection Scanlan had wrought upon it. A bubble of turbulence issued from the reptile’s forehead and shimmied down its body like a fat, rippling ring of translucent jelly. Bronze shrapnel flew as the ring pried it free, but the infection couldn’t be removed or cured so easily.

  Jav pushed with AI and sailed through the air in the direction of least pressure. Despite its other efforts, the dnya sore still sought to envelope him with its TK and Jav had an idea to let it, but on his own terms.

  He allowed the TK to close in on him, pressing back at various points with AI to even out the distribution of force. When he perceived a flat “surface” before him, he held his palm up to it, nearly touching, and started to calculate. He did this for a full thirty seconds, holding the dyna sore’s will at bay with his own at the same time, until finally he thrust his palm forward, no more than the single centimeter required to put it past the TK threshold, and exceeded infinity in the process. There was a piercing sound, as of glass shattering on a cosmic scale, but more notable was the dyna sore’s physical reaction. Its head jerked and blood poured from its mouth and slit nostrils. It reeled for a moment, steadied itself, shook its head several times as if recovering from a particularly nasty sneeze, but it appeared to have recovered, though how remained a mystery and a wonder to Jav.

  Through the entire episode, despite the dyna sore’s obvious if short-lived trauma, Hilene still could not make contact with the reptile. But now there were more targets. Many more targets. Hundreds, perhaps thousands. Jav had an idea that she’d been able to see the other reptiles all along, but it made his heart sink a little to think that they would have to contend with so many with Scanlan’s plan teetering between success and utter, permanent failure. That the reptiles had given up on their advantage of stealth didn’t brighten his outlook, either. In fact, there was very little chance of any kind of success against such opponents. They’d been foolish to think that, after suffering so badly at the hands of one reptile, there wouldn’t be more, just as capable and just as determined to eliminate them. It was hopeless he knew.

  “Jav!” Hilene cried. “Jav, it’s happening again, isn’t it!”

  • • •

  None of those who’d survived the war with the humans could match Raohan La’s mental power. He’d had peers prior to and during the war, but they had either fallen to the Godsorts, or gotten too close to the Kossig Engine and rushed headlong into oblivion. The remaining reptiles were not without their attributes, though.

  Raohan La’s mate was a particularly gifted biologist, which is why Raohan La still lived. She was among the group that now made their way towards the temporal window and the giant plant. At his insistence, she was at the rear for her own safety, but she was constantly monitoring him and tending to him with her mind.

  Others were adept at light manipulation, able to create visuals to confuse those who relied on the sense of sight. Still others could creep inside the mind, find and exploit all the terrible little cracks and crevices, manipulate emotions, and warp the perception of reality.

  Raohan La had selected thirty-four of his fellows. Fifteen of them had the sole duty of monitoring him and the other nineteen, supplementing them with additional mental resources and obscuring their approach. He’d hoped to avoid an overt show of force. He’d hoped that the temporal window could be saved, but it had become too much of a liability. The plant-borne humans were proving to be too smart, too able to exploit the technology and the forces the window controlled. Chushin La had returned him to almost perfect health, but he was weary. He’d exerted himself significantly in the last twenty-four hours. Rest was the only way to recover that loss, but there would be no rest until their work here was done. He could not do it alone.

  First, he would take care of the giant golden machine, so much like the Godsorts, but larger. Larger meant nothing, though, not if there was no Kossig Engine to produce getnium rays. Still, he mustn’t underestimate the enemy. Their simple electrical discharge weapon produced far more energy than natural atmospheric systems. The golden machine would make a good shield for the work he needed to do on the temporal window, and with the skeleton man gone, he could now begin.

  With its leg crippled by sudden, explosive telekinetic force, the golden machine listed and sagged, only partially blocking the view of the window from the giant plant. It would suffice. One of the humans, this one more machine than flesh and blood, still tended the window, but with another application of telekinesis, the little hybrid would be no more.

  Raohan La flexed his mental fist around the mechanized human and was, for the most part satisfied. In the end, he met a measure of resisting force which he could not understand, but his confusion melted away momentarily. It was, after all, only a human, however modified.

  He pushed through the trees, drawing closer to the window, and noted that the skeleton man had paused on his way to the plant. Was that a spear he held? Did he really mean to—

  For the second time in two days, Raohan La had been run through. He felt nothing at first, then the sharp bite of angry nerves wracked his body, and caused him to cry out. It also shook the synchronicity he and his fellows shared as well. They had almost certainly become visible in that moment of exquisite agony. He fought to control himself, but the clean channel through his torso expanded centimeter by centimeter as the surrounding flesh first combusted from contact with the white hot missile then melted as the temperature dropped, until the wound wasn’t clean at all. Blood filled the space and wept from either side. Outrage quickly overwhelmed his pain.

  “Chushin La,” he thought through gritted teeth. “Once more, my love.”

  He sensed her disquiet, but felt her influence immediately.

  He steadied himself for a moment, glanced behind him to see if the missile might still be serviceable so that he could turn it against the enemy, but there was nothing but a narrow, smoking crater there.

  He continued forward, his cells repairing themselves and multiplying at a fantastic rate under Chushin La’s control, and was completely unprepared for the crushed hybrid’s assault. He didn’t understand the nature of the attack. It didn’t hurt, it didn’t cause damage on contact. But then he understood. It was a delivery system. Hs body was swarming with minuscule machines, machines that passed through his still open wounds, that bit almost imperceptibly—it was like a sickening tickle—that reproduced and adapted as they consumed his flesh. The tickle came in waves and peaked painfully, overloading his nerves again, but not to the point of disrupting the bond with his fellows. He collapsed, struggled to gain full control over his muscles. He saw that the skeleton man had somehow retrieved his missile and was preparing to throw again.

  “Agras La,” Raohan La thought, “afflict the skeleton man with conscience. Send him on a downward spiral, never to return.”

  “Yes, Raohan La.”

  Raohan La mastered himself, stood erect, and enveloped the skeleton man—now effectively distracted—with the crushing force of his mind. The double front was working and would have proven final, but the damnable little female had returned, and with a single word, had drawn the skeleton man out of the abyss of guilt and dread. That was enough for him to work his strange spatial manipulations and escape Raohan La’s grip.

  The little female was no longer the threat to Raohan La that she had been. He had learned. He read her presence through a combination of means, mostly visual, and used that as a teleport trigger. He was well able to calculate all possible trajectories of her duplicates and adjust for them simultaneously, but he couldn’t do that and continue to act as lead on this assault. He avoided her approach easily enough, but he had other work to do.

  “Suhim La. Farnis La,” Raohan La thought. “As I showed you. Be prepared to shift your focus. I believe that she can
see through anything—to the truth.

  “If any of you can snare her, do not hesitate to do so. She, like the skeleton man, is still quite dangerous.”

  With one half of his attention, Raohan La pursued the skeleton man, with the other half he took stock of his own body, cataloged in an instant his current measurements in three dimensions inside and out, and belched forth a wave of kinetic energy from his forehead. It ran down his sinuous neck, down his stocky torso and short, thick limbs, to cleanse him of the machine infection that still ran rampant. The majority of the machines caught by the wave were pulverized and made inert. The debris of those still inside him were teleported harmlessly away. A small percentage remained, no matter what action he took, however, and the infection spread anew. He could at least maintain his own cleanliness. He established a pulse to purge his system every sixty seconds, and so doing, made it autonomic.

  He now turned his full attention to the skeleton man, tracking, turning, reaching, closing. What was this? Was the skeleton man tiring? Was he allowing himself to be crushed? No. He was planning something, biding his time. There was no escape now, but still the skeleton man resisted, much like the machine man had, but this was different somehow, calculated to—

  Everything went white.

  From very far away, Raohan La heard the tiny voice of his mate in his mind. She was chastising him, bidding him to wake. He roused sluggishly in the utter white of his existence, attempted to call her name, but couldn’t remember it.

  “Raohan La, you are very fortunate. If not for our intimacy, had I not known the delicate folds of your mind—each and every crease—you would be gone now. Do not test that one again. It is time for us to act in earnest.”

  Raohan La’s senses returned to him. Though it felt agonizingly slow, Chushin La had restored his brain, which she had been monitoring constantly, in just over a minute. He’d been able to make sense of her words, and they did make sense.