Further: Beyond the Threshold

by Chris Roberson

  “Atari,” I said, a force of habit. I had him boxed in now, though he didn’t know it. “It’s time to stand down, Radon. You’ve hurt us and we’ve hurt you, but it’s time for this to stop now.”

  “Do you mock me, unbeliever? When I have the advantage in my hands?”

  “You don’t, though, Radon,” I said, no trace of warmth or humor in my voice. “This doesn’t end well for any of us if you don’t stop right now. Leave us be, and we’ll go on our way, and you can keep mining to fuel your crazy crusade across the stars. But if you fire that mass launcher, it’ll end in tears.”

  “Your tears,” he shouted, sounding unreasonable, manic. “You’ll bathe in your tears as you watch your ship blow to atoms above you, and then you’ll beg for release before I end your meaningless existence.”

  “No,” I said simply, shaking my head. “You won’t, and I won’t. Stand down, let me and my ship go, or you won’t like what happens next.”

  “I tire of your misbelief and madness,” Radon raged. “This ends—now.”

  He turned to someone out of view, and raised a spurred fist.

  “Fire!”

  I opened my mouth to shout for him to wait, but by then it was too late.

  EIGHTY

  The projectile from the mass launcher shot up with a tremendous amount of force, enough to reach escape velocity and still be moving fast enough after shedding speed-overcoming gravity that it impacted with considerable inertia. It wasn’t the impact that did the damage, but the fissionable material inside the ferric shell, arranged into an incredibly powerful nuclear bomb. When it exploded, it far outshone the dim light of the dead star overhead, blinding bright.

  The Iron Mass vessel never stood a chance.

  On the display screen, Radon sputtered, looking with disbelief as he watched his spacefaring home go up in a ball of nuclear fire.

  “Divine Ideal!” Radon cursed.

  The Compass Rose had slipped the bonds of the planet’s gravity and was well away as the Iron Mass ship began to plunge downward toward the planet’s surface.

  “Amelia?” I said as I watched the houseship drift ever lower, until finally it exploded in a fiery conflagration that reached for kilometers in every direction.

  The mining platform was far away from the blast, and had the leading edge of the shock wave not hit the refinery, they’d likely have been able to weather the storm. But it did, and they didn’t.

  The refinery, triggered by the impact of the exploding ship, quickly approached a runaway meltdown.

  “Good-bye, RJ,” said the image of Amelia on the display, and then was gone.

  A second new sun raged from the planet’s surface as the refinery went up in an atomic holocaust that consumed Radon and Amelia, the mining platform and the cairn forest, the bodies of Bin-Ney and Zaslow, and everything else for a range of dozens of kilometers.

  EIGHTY-ONE

  Maruti and Xerxes weren’t happy about having to ride back to the Further affixed to the bottom of the Compass Rose, and less so that they had to wait even longer while the ship’s generators built up enough power to open the hangar bay doors. But once we were back on board, with the solid deck beneath us, all was forgiven.

  Xerxes was unable to properly communicate, having devoted a large part of eir intellect to storing and sustaining the uploaded gestalt of crash survivors from the planet below.

  Maruti, as much as he wanted to talk, was kept busy helping Jida to grow a new arm, fabricating new bodies for Zaslow and Bin-Ney and decanting their consciousness backups into their new homes, and integrating the backup of Amelia’s mind with the compressed memories that her previous incarnation had sent me from the mining platform.

  Amelia remembered nothing of the final moments on the mining platform, her final memories being those of contacting me on board the Compass Rose as Jida and I were making good our escape. She knew that her previous iteration had sacrificed herself for us, but until I told her about changing the mass launcher’s aim, she’d had no idea that she’d been responsible for saving the entire crew of the Further as well. As I described the events to her, though, with her projected in holographic miniature on the palm of my hand, I could tell that she was grateful not to have any memory of those final deeds. For all that Amelia the soldier was necessary from time to time, Amelia the good-hearted friend was no more comfortable around her than I was.

  Jida was happy to be rejoined with the rest of her mind, as small as it was, and I could see the looks of shock, fear, and pride as they flickered across her other two faces as the memories spread throughout the legion fragment. Jida, speaking in three voices in unison, thanked me for my part in sparing her another death at the hands of the Iron Mass, and then waited patiently for me to thank her for her part in sparing me the same. After sufficient thanks had been passed around, the three Jida bodies crushed me between them in a massive hug, and then she wandered off, talking to herself about the possibilities of fabricating a new body for herself, perhaps one a bit better adapted for adventure.

  And that was that. Everyone was restored, wounds were licked, and we had nothing to do but wait until the ship’s drives accumulated enough power for us to move on. Fortunately, by the time we’d all gotten squared away, the Further had generated at least enough power to turn on life support in the rest of the ship, so I could at least go back to my quarters for some much-needed rest.

  EIGHTY-TWO

  After taking a well-deserved nap, I showered and dressed, and wandered down to Maruti’s quarters. I felt bad about having been so short with him through much of our recent misadventure and wanted to apologize for being so curt.

  I needn’t have bothered, I suppose. Maruti was so caught up in his most recent discovery that I doubt he even noticed the slight in the first place, much less my apology after the fact.

  “Oh, Captain!” he said as I entered his rooms. I noted that he’d taken the opportunity to clean and groom himself, and was now wearing a purple velvet tuxedo, a yellow flower in his lapel, with a huge cigar smoldering at the corner of his wide mouth and a martini glass in his hand. “I was hoping you’d stop by!”

  He waved me over to a large, flat, table-like object he’d erected at the center of the room. As I approached, I could see that its surface was configured as a display and that a strange, low-resolution kind of virtual environment could be seen within.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “These are our new friends, of course,” Maruti said, beaming. “The gestalt—I’ve taken to calling it the ‘Hive,’ and Xerxes had advanced no serious objection, so I suppose we should simply call it the Hive, yes? Well, the Hive from the bacteria network has been transferred from Xerxes’s memory into the Further’s computational array.”

  I gazed down into the virtual environment and saw indistinct gray shapes moving deep within.

  “So that’s them?”

  “Exactly. A fairly limited existence, to be sure, but they’ve survived, which is a remarkable achievement. They must have uploaded their minds into the bacteria network as a final resort, turning themselves into little more than messages in a bottle, hoping against hope that they might be rescued. And though it’s taken thousands upon thousands of years, at last they have.”

  “What do they think about all of this?”

  “Oh, so far as they’re aware, no change at all has occurred. We’re still working out the best way to establish contact with the Hive consciousness, but for the time being, we’ve managed to duplicate the limited environment they’ve existed in all of these years.”

  “But we will be making contact with them?”

  “Absolutely! And in time, we’ll be able to slowly integrate them back into the real world.” He paused and took a sip of his martini. “Assuming, of course, that they haven’t grown to prefer it in there. After all,” he said, flashing me a chimpanzee smile, “I imagine things out here could be a mite too exciting for those not quite as adventurous as you and me, eh, Captain?”

 
I smiled right back. “You might just be right, Maruti. The world is pretty exciting at times, isn’t it?”

  “That it is,” the chimp said with a smile. “And in light of same, can I offer you a drink?”

  I shrugged. “Why not? And how about one of those bidis while you’re at it?”

  EIGHTY-THREE

  Later, properly lubricated after a few rounds with the chimpanzee, the strong smell of bidi smoke clinging to my hair and clothes, I left Maruti’s quarters and made for the bridge.

  Aside from Zel, sitting in the command chair, and the Further avatar perched high overhead, the bridge was empty.

  “Captain,” Zel said, inclining her head slightly. “I’m glad to see that you’re well.”

  “Thanks, First,” I said, stepping down the tiered layers of the bridge to the control center. “I could easily say the same about you.”

  Zel shrugged and, reaching up, tapped the sapphire patch over her eye. “I’ve been in worse spots, believe me.”

  “You’ll have to tell me about them sometime.” Smiling, I stopped just short of the command chair.

  “Perhaps,” Zel said through a slight smile, unmoving. She glanced down at the chair’s arms, at the control center before her, and then sighed deeply before looking up at me.

  “I believe you’re in my seat,” I said good-naturedly.

  “Oh, I know,” Zel said, waving her hand absently. “I just find, when you vacate it, that it suits me so well.”

  I grinned. “Well, you kept the ship in one piece while I was away. I couldn’t ask for more from a second-in-command. Good job.”

  “Yes.” Zel nodded languidly. “It was a good job, wasn’t it? And while I wouldn’t have risked using the field inverter, I must admit that it seems to have been the right decision, after all.” She paused, then narrowed her eye and added, “Though it was a stroke of incredible good fortune that your digital friend was in position to save us from the mass launcher strike.”

  I shrugged. “We all got lucky. I just hope that our luck doesn’t run out when we need it most.”

  “You and me both,” Zel said. Then, reluctantly, she rose to her feet.

  Stepping away from the command chair, she motioned toward it.

  “I believe this is yours?”

  “Thanks, First,” I said, and sat down unceremoniously.

  Zel turned and started for the exit.

  “Hey, Zel?” I called after her, thoughtfully.

  “Yes, Captain Stone?”

  “This isn’t the kind of relationship where we start off hating each other and end up romantically involved is it? Are we that clichéd?”

  Zel looked surprised and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “You…” she began, and then trailed off. “You don’t…?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, this is just…unexpected. Captain, has no one told you about Pethesileans, then?”

  “Um, no?”

  “It would appear not,” Zel said, an unfamiliar tone of kindness in her voice. “Captain, we Pethesileans decoupled reproduction from sexual intercourse millennia ago. We’re genetically adapted to be parthenogenic and can reproduce at will. The genetic material can come entirely from the mother or can be taken into the mother’s body from any number of donors and incorporated into the embryo. But we have no fathers, no males—only females.”

  “You mean…?”

  “You met my mother above Aglibol. Cirea is my isomorphic parent, my sole genetic donor.”

  “So, wait, I’m confused. You’re a clone?”

  Zel sighed and shook her head. “I’ll try not to be offended by that. I’m a clone in precisely the way that you are the corrupted diploidic copy of the spliced genes of two donors.”

  “I…I didn’t…”

  Zel smiled, a thin smile that didn’t reach her eye. “Pethesileans are seldom romantically involved, but never for long. And never with males. I’m sorry to disappoint, Captain Stone.”

  With that, she turned on her heel and walked out the door.

  “But…” I said, trying to object that I’d not actually been propositioning her, but only making a halfhearted joke, but the door closed behind her and the moment was gone.

  I sat in silence for a long moment, shaking my head ruefully. Then, sighing, I turned and looked up at the silver eagle perched high on the wall.

  “Well, Further, I think it’s high time we had a talk, don’t you?”

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  “What do you mean, Captain Stone?”

  “I mean, Further, that I’d like an answer.”

  I swiveled around in the command chair, propping my feet up on the surface of the control center.

  “An answer?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, but kept silent.

  “An answer to what?”

  “Well,” I said, “to the question that hasn’t been asked but that shouldn’t need to be asked.”

  The silver eagle cocked its head to one side and regarded me for a moment.

  “You want to know why, then?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Now, I don’t believe that the Plenum created me out of whole cloth, like Zel suspects. I believe that I’m Ramachandra Jason Stone. I have to believe that, I think, or I’d go a little crazy. But what I can’t figure out is why I’m not just a museum piece or a relic in someone’s personal menagerie of oddities. I’m a pretty capable and clever guy, sure, but I don’t kid myself that I’m the best qualified to command the most expensive ship ever made, with the fortunes of untold numbers of Entelechy citizens in his hands.”

  “No,” the Further said simply. “You’re not.” It paused, and after a moment, added, “At least, not if the only consideration were the cost of the ship or the fortunes of Entelechy citizens—not fortunes in terms of profit and loss, at any rate. When discussing the fortunes of the Entelechy as a whole, though, in perhaps a less tangible but much more meaningful sense, then I would argue that you are, in fact, the perfect being for the job.”

  I narrowed my eyes and slid my feet down to the floor. Leaning forward over the control center, my palms flat on its surface, I stared up at the avatar. “And why is that?”

  “Because, Captain Stone, you bring a unique perspective. You are the product of an era of exploration and discovery to rival any in human history. The century of your birth, while plagued with ills and corruption, was at the same moment one of the high watermarks of human achievement. In the span of a few dozen decades before your birth, humanity learned more about the world around them than in all of human history to that point combined, expanding the bounds of knowledge and understanding from the quantum to the cosmic. You threw off the shackles of irrationality and mysticism, and brought to bear the penetrating light of human reason. Everything that is best and brightest about the Human Entelechy, every technology and science and art and craft, has its origins in your era. But the humans of the current era, the inheritors of this wealth of greatness, have become too complacent, too comfortable in their utopian splendor. They motivate themselves to explore the heavens only in search of profit, or proof of their pet theories and beliefs, or for a thousand other selfish motives. Of them all, only you, Captain Stone, have come out here into the uncharted blackness of space simply because you can.”

  I took a deep breath, soaking in all it had said.

  “And that’s why the Plenum chose me to represent its interests on the ship? I don’t get it. Why the cost? Why the expense? What does the Plenum have to gain?”

  “The future, Captain. You are our insurance against stagnation and decay. The Entelechy, for all its size and variation, has become increasingly insular, an endogamic superculture. Though it may take millions of years, in time that isolation will lead to the same ills found in primitive cultures when a genetic pool was too small to sustain itself. Defect, decay, and death. In the time of the Diaspora, countless offshoots of humanity spread throughout the stars. The future health of humanity in all of its guises—biological and synthetic, corporeal and di
gital—depends on the intermarriage, if you will, of these disparate human branches. The Plenum projects that for every new culture that is brought back into contact, the Entelechy gains another few millennia of health and vibrancy, if not more. But without an infusion of new concepts and new ideas, it is only a matter of time before the Entelechy collapses in on itself, decaying from within.”

  “And you threw in with the Further fund and manipulated me into becoming the ship’s captain…”

  “Because you had nothing to lose, and we had everything to gain.”

  EPILOGUE

  I found Xerxes in the Atrium, the domed ceiling overhead displaying a true-color image of the hull’s exterior view.

  “May I join you?”

  Xerxes waved absently to the bench beside em, eir eyeless face lifted, watching birds wheel high overhead.

  “Sorry you didn’t find your extraterrestrials, Xerxes,” I said, sitting.

  “It was an unlikely outcome.” Ey made a noise almost like a sigh, though for my benefit or eir own, I wasn’t sure. “It always is, I suppose. But there’s still the hope that our next destination may prove more fruitful.” Ey paused, and then said, “What is our next destination, for that matter?”

  “A nebula a hundred or so light-years away,” I answered. “The brothers Grimnismal think there’s a chance we might find their exotic matter in the vicinity.”

  The robot shrugged, an almost imperceptible gesture. “It seems as good a destination to me as any.”

  I smiled. “You know, that was pretty much my feeling exactly.”

  The birds overhead swooped and darted, and the robot and I sat quietly for a long moment.

  “Tell me, Xerxes. Do you regret not moving into your final stage yet, breaking your body down and beaming your signal out into space?”

  Ey turned eir eyeless face toward mine and smiled. “If I had, Captain Stone, I wouldn’t be sitting here, talking to you, watching these birds. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. The future lies before us with all its endless promise of possibility, discovery, and surprise. How could I possibly want to give all that up?”