The Genetic Imerative

by P. Joseph Cherubino

Nina made her way back down the spiral walkway through the egg-shaped chamber, and it felt much different. The sights were the same, but the presence of the grim Intelligence Division soldiers surrounding her made the air heavier and the light less comforting. They covered her like a film. She couldn’t help but brush shoulders with them as they wound their way down towards the train platform. They all looked straight ahead as if marching to assembly. Nina was numb. The numbness fell over her as soon as she stepped out of Cordelia’s warm chamber. Nina was on her way to trial. It appeared that high command had lost its tolerance for the experiment of independent residential chambers, and Nina’s prosecution was now a priority.

  Nina discovered the Commander of her escort was named Azin. She served directly under General Olthan’s authority. Nina was able to capture scraps of information from the soldiers as they briefly exchanged information. None of them would speak with Nina directly. Olthan had grown impatient that Nina had not been brought to trial. The General requested prosecution at the start of her fleet contingent’s three-month transit from the Third Arm Warsphere. Olthan received confirmation of the request just before her flagship translated through blinkpoint, more than a month later. In spite of this, Olthan received approval to proceed with the prosecution three days before Nina’s arrest. She couldn’t arrest Nina before the Celebration of Middle, and then Nina had evaporated into a group of dissenters. Olthan was extremely angry, and the face of her anger took the form of Commander Azin.

  Commander Azin appeared to be a very strict functionary of Olthan’s command. Nina gleaned references to the Commander’s work on occupation missions where native elements within a client civilization required Advocate intervention. From those references, Nina gathered that Azin’s tactics were both brutal and effective. From the work Nina had seen from her so far, she thought this was an accurate estimation of the Commander’s overall style. It was evident also that the Commander had significant combat experience. It bothered her to think of another Advocate this way. She was not accustomed to thinking of her sisters as adversaries.

  Her captors drew to a sharp halt at the train platform where a private three-car segment waited. A group of four soldiers waited at the train obviously guarding the platform. In each car, two more soldiers waited. Olthan dispatched a significant force to fetch Nina. It appeared one of the soldiers in the middle train was assigned to communications. She stood staring at the train car ceiling, then left the car to report to Azin.

  “Second group of dissidents is on the way,” the comm officer said verbally. “They number fifty.”

  Nina counted twenty-four total in Azin’s troop, including the two wounded in the brief fight.

  The commander scanned her soldiers, turned to her comm officer and said, “Thank you, Sergeant. Keep comm to channels from now on.” Azin looked pointedly at Nina.

  Azin knew that Nina and the others did not carry comm crystals. Azin wanted to keep all her communications private. Nina chafed at what she the unnecessary measure.

  Orders were obviously issued through thought channels as the soldiers left Nina with two guards as the rest of the troop formed flanks around the train platform entrance. Azin was taking no chances. Nina wondered how the rest of the warriors would think about being so obviously corralled. She was grateful that only a handful of soldiers were wearing battle robes as they reached the train platform. The rest were in casual attire. She couldn’t tell if any of them was armed, but it was highly unlikely. Weapons were not prohibited in residential areas, but very few bothered to carry them unless they were training or had some other transitory need.

  The new group on the platform was led by General Zebrak, who strode briskly towards Azin and stood nearly touching toes. The commander had to lean back a bit to make eye contact.

  “We will be in the rear car,” the General said coolly, and made a motion with her arm to the soldiers behind her.

  Cordelia helped move the order along as she guided the dissenting troop towards the rear car. Azin said nothing, but maintained steady eye contact with the General. Nina studied everything, actively noting how everyone was arranged.

  Azin split her troop evenly between the first two cars and directed Nina to the middle car where she sat across the aisle. Nina sat in a row of seats by herself. These were long-distance cars, with two rows of four seats separated by an aisle. As the train moved through the tunnel by some unheard order, Nina leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes to meditate quietly.

  About an hour later, it became apparent that things were not going as Azin planned. She had broken from thought channels and was now discussing matters verbally with her comm officers and second.

  “Why are we not heading in the direction of the Central District?” Azin asked firmly.

  “I do not know, Commander. We should have exclusive and priority control of this train segment. We entered the destination into train logic, and it confirmed the command. Yet we are heading deeper into the crust.”

  “Can you tell the direction we are heading?” Azin asked.

  “No commander,” replied Azin’s second, Lieutenant Karani

  “Has anyone made note of our turns in the tunnels?” Azin asked both soldiers.

  The soldiers looked at each other nonplussed.

  “I will take that as a no. Sergeant, I want you to ask our troop if anyone has been keeping track of our turns and general direction. Try to put together a picture of where we are going,” Azin said, turning to her Second, “Karani, do you believe the dissidents have anything to do with this?”

  The Lieutenant thought about this for a moment before answering.

  “Inconclusive,” Karani said. “I see no other destination commands in the train logic, but that doesn’t mean something else is not happening. We have no engineers in our troop, and I do not know what else to look for to answer that question.”

  Azin thought for a moment before calling her Sergeant back.

  “I want you to reach out to the dissidents,” Azin said. “Find out if they have someone over there with an active comm crystal who may be listening. If you find someone, tell," Azin paused, "request that I would like to speak with the General.”

  There was no way to move or communicate between cars. They couldn’t see into the other cars, but they could see the adjoining ends through the train windows. The three car train was still connected.

  Azin’s voice pointed directly at Nina. The commander said, “And find out if that one has a communication crystal in her robe.”

  With that, Nina opened her eyes.

  “I do not,” she said simply, and sat up in the seat, prepared to resist a search. Nina was not interested in further submission to Azin’s authority. Nina was relieved when the comm officer spoke.

  “I detect no active signals from her. I am in contact with the sold … dissidents in the other car,” the Comm Sergeant said.

  “And?” Azin asked impatiently.

  “And they also wonder where we are going. I’ve taken a survey of all the soldiers I can contact. Piecing together observations, it appears that we are heading away from the Central District and approaching the equator. We are on a steady descent.

  Judging by the high temperature outside and high air pressure in the tubes, and the homogeneity of the rock, we are very deep in the crust and approaching the mantle. We may already be in the outer mantle transition layers.”

  Nina could see this was true. Even at three hundred kilometers an hour, she could see the tube walls sparkle with the unmistakable glitter of silica and the overall color had faded from reddish to beige. She had never been this deep inside any planet before. She imagined the heat and pressure would be enormous. Wherever they were going would have to be heavy with failsafe engineering to be survivable, much less livable. She saw no breathing equipment in the trains, so she hoped this was the case.

  Azin stood and thought about this for a few moments. Her hands flexed against the hard seat back as if trying to grasp the answer there.

>   “Can you make contact with Transit Command, General Olthan’s staff, or any engineering sections?” Azin asked.

  “No Commander,” the Comm Sergeant replied. “I keep trying intermittently. The signals are going out through network, but nothing is coming back.”

  Nina couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “This sounds very familiar,” Nina said.

  “I am not asking for your input,” Azin growled, red rising into her pale, scarred face. The effect made the knotted white scars that angled across her face stand out even more.

  “I am aware of that, Azin,” Nina said, “You should know that Olthan can hear you. You are being ignored. She, or someone else, has ordered no contact with this group.”

  “How can you know that?” Azin said, taking note of the fact that Nina was dropping the courtesy of acknowledging rank.

  Azin decided not to dignify the disrespect with a direct response, but it was difficult.

  “If General Olthan were able to communicate,” Azin said, “she would.”

  “That has not been my experience with her command thus far,” Nina said.

  Azin seethed in her reply.

  “It is more likely to assume that this train has been subverted by the very elements we are attempting to bring to trial,” Azin said.

  “If that were the case,” Nina replied, “then the train would still be on the platform, and it would have been you under guard.

  Think about it. Why would the independents move from the place where they have the numerical advantage?

  No. Something has changed, and High Command has not seen fit to tell us.”

  Azin couldn’t find an answer. She trembled with anger. If it came down to it, Nina realized she could kill Azin using the Commander’s own anger. Anger was the flame that consumed. All Nina had to do was wait for it to burn out, and Azin would fall. The risk would be based on how much the Commander had inside her to burn. It would also be determined by how much Nina could take. Nina closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat again.

  “Wake me when we get there,” Nina said. She had no intention of sleeping.

  Azin’s flesh creaked against the seat back as her hand clenched and unclenched. Nina tried not to smile. The waves of anger coming from the Commander were almost tangible.

  Azin took her officers to the far end of the car to confer, away from Nina.

  Their answers came nearly three hours later. They traveled for four hours total. Nina sat up when she noticed the train slowing down. They train took a few kilometers to decelerate gradually to a stop. They arrived in a space of darkness made only incomplete by the light spilling out of the train windows and open doors. The warm air of the train rushed out into the cold chamber. Nina could soon see her breath.

  “It’s cold,” Nina found herself saying unintentionally.

  They had to be deep inside Homesphere, and very far away from any known chambers. If they were anywhere near the mantle, temperatures and pressures would begin to render solid rock viscous, yet this place was cold. Where did all the heat go? Powerful machines must be at work somewhere, Nina thought.

  The soldiers stood with confusion and fear. The stillness beyond the train was complete. The normally quiet hum of the train car levitation field seemed like a riot against the void it interrupted.

  “Everyone hold,” Azin said quietly. Nobody moved. “Com,” she said calmly “Request the others to remain inside until we understand this.”

  Nina began to gain a bit more respect for Azin. She could control her anger when necessary, it seemed.

  “Comm. Do you have any open channels in this place? Any beacons? Standard greetings? Anything?” Azin asked.

  “No Commander.” the Comm Sergeant replied.

  Nina rose slowly and took great care with her body language as she approached Azin.

  “Commander Azin,” Nina said, and for the first time giving a formal address. “May I exit the train with you?”

  Nina was surprised when Azin gave her assent. They both carefully stepped out of the train. Azin drew her staff and energized it, sending a soft island of lavender light out around their feet. There was no echo. They allowed their eyes to relax and shift their vision to heat and vibration. They could pick up the seemingly endless plane of the platform floor only by feeling the vibration of their breath returned to them. Without the benefit of echoes, they only detected footsteps when approaching soldiers were ten meters away. Both Azin and Nina stepped back instinctively.

  The soldiers were massive, and there were many. Without visible light, they appeared as dimly glowing, barely defined red and orange silhouettes that produced waves of heat disappearing into the void. The heat they produced was enough to understand their dimensions.

  Each was almost a meter taller than Nina. Their arms were as large as her thighs, their torsos twice as broad. They varied very little in height. They were Queen’s Guard. Nina and Azin instinctively moved closer and positioned themselves defensively. The guard stopped about two meters away and formed two columns of four by four, with an aisle between, where another soldier stood dead center. This soldier contrasted with the size and shape of the Guard in her slight build and lesser heat output.

  “Please forgive me,” the smaller soldier said, in a soft, somehow familiar voice that disappeared into the echoless void, “Shield your eyes, I will light the chamber.”

  There were apparently lightcasters in the floor. Nina saw them glow for an instant as they adjusted by command. The lightcasters created ambient light in the shape of a dome within the chamber that was about forty meters around. They could see no walls within that dome. The chamber faded into black all around and above. Nina couldn’t even see the train tube entrance. Other soldiers began to venture out of the train without being told. Azin and General Zebrak did not object. The presence of the Queen’s guard could mean only one thing.

  They could see now that the massive soldiers were clad in black. They stood perfectly still precisely like statues. Nina had to stare to see that they were breathing. In spite of this, they all understood these Warriors were completely aware. Each one was very nearly the same height, but their shapes and tones of skin were vastly different. Some had skin of deep brown while others were almost albino, and they covered many more shades in between. Their faces too were widely varied; eyes narrow or widely set at angles from straight to oblique with noses flat, round or long, their cheekbones high, wide or narrow. While each was massively muscled, some were slender of hip, while others were broad. Here, breasts bulged beneath robes, or there gave barely a hint of presence beneath black spinstone. Very few Warrior have seen the Queen’s guard.

  The soldier standing between the two massive columns had no eyes. Nina could see empty black slits below sagging eyelids as she slowly, gracefully progressed towards them. The grace of her movement somehow wasn’t shocking, in spite of the fact that her body was so obviously broken. Her left leg was set at an awkward angle so that the knee turned inward towards her right side. Her left shoulder sagged so that the skin of her neck stretched into pale white cords. Her emaciated left arm swung like an irregular pendulum in front of her pelvis as she moved. Her right leg seemed oddly untouched, and three fingers were missing from her right hand. The right side of her face, from her hairline to her neck, and back to the missing right ear, was a mass of pale, pink scar tissue plastered closely to her skull. Her short, straw-colored hair barely covered the right side of her head. The nose was long, sharp and severe as were her oddly intact lips. As the soldier approached, Nina recognized Talin.

  Nina tried to suppress the memory of her oldest friend. She assumed Talin was one of the early casualties on the Third Arm. Talin didn’t show up at the rally on the lava dome, she never showed up on any of the communications networks, and she did not appear on the voyage home. But now Talin was here, and she was so broken. Nina was nothing but a little confused.

  Some part of Nina wondered why she didn’t feel more. This thing walking towards her was ho
rrifically damaged. The pain her wounds represented staggered soldiers in the group behind Nina. Some of them wept quietly and stepped forward. Nina had even recognized some small sign of empathy from Azin. And inside Nina, there was nothing. She saw just another casualty. She saw chewed meat—just another walking humanoid wreck. And the thing called itself the Queen. Talin’s body approached.

  General Zebrak stepped forward and bowed deeply from the waist.

  “My Queen,” Zebrak rumbled, and the thing placed a hand on her shoulder, reaching up to do so.

  The Queen stepped back and announced, “This one is my vessel and honors me with her body and voice.”

  “This one?” Nina said. Her voice was sharp. An unpleasant taste filled her mouth.

  “Yes, Nina. Your friend Talin now speaks for me,” the Queen said.

  Hearing the Queen use her name made Nina’s stomach turn. The corners of her lips curled into a sneer that Nina could not hide. Nina recoiled at the fact this thing tried to be so familiar. General Zebrak looked at Nina with an expression bordering on horror at Nina’s reaction. The rest of the soldiers, realizing the presence of their queen, took to their knees. Nina stood facing the Queen with her spine straight and eyes ahead. The thing approached her, and Nina took a step back. It dropped its hand and shrunk away with a look of disappointment falling over Talin’s eyeless face.

  “My daughters,” Talin’s voice suddenly rang out with the high pitch that often annoyed Nina. She sometimes teased Talin about her voice.

  “You honor me with your presence as you do with your lives. But today we have unpleasant business to deal with.”

  “My trial,” Nina said. Her voice rang with defiance.

  The thing calling itself the Queen smiled, said, “There will be no trial here, but there will be judgment.”

  The Queen spoke loud enough for all to hear. Then, flanked by her guard, the Queen turned on her heel and motioned them forward.

  The dome of light followed the group as they walked. The soldiers caught an occasional twinkling on the floor from the corners of their eyes the lightcasters created the dome. They all walked into the echoless, directionless void until a series of shapes suddenly appeared at the dome’s rim. Those shapes revealed themselves to be Commander Olthan and two other soldiers. The numbness faded, and Nina’s sheath almost activated. Her hand moved towards the staff concealed in her robe. One of the giant moving statues fell back two paces from the formation and turned her head and looked directly at Nina. The giant one shook her head “no.” A deeper chill came to the already cold cavern. The Guard seemed to see everything.