"They spent weeks in that shipping crate you put them in. In those circumstances . . . well, he's a healthy man and she's an attractive, athletic woman. What else do you do to pass the time inside a big box? You don't think they sat around and argued philosophy, do you?"
No, he couldn't imagine Staffa and Kaylla locked in that box for three months of celibacy. And he remembered that day on Etaria. She'd pleaded for Staffa's life.
How could he ever follow another order from Kaylla? How could he ever look her in the face without imagining her moaning in time to the rotation of Staffa's hips.
And now Staffa is making a deal with the machine? Did he figure he could treat the whole of humanity like he did the women in his life?
Nyklos turned his steps toward the mountain. Bruen still couldn't be completely trusted, but a man with Nyklos' talent and capabilities could prepare-just in case what the old Magister said was true.
CHAPTER 28
Frederick Gaust ducked his head low as he scurried out the side door of the public auditorium and into Freeholt Thoroughfare. His two bodyguards huddled close on either side, rushing him forward. The aircar was waiting, its side emblazoned with the Imperial seal, the j essant-de-lis; the driver sat slouched in the seat as he watched something on his pocket comm. His head snapped up, the silly grin on his face fading as Gaust leapt into the rear seat.
Behind them, inside the auditorium, the roar of angry shouting had overcome the soundproofing built into the walls. Terguz had to be that way, everything was packed together, shoulder to shoulder in the undersurface warrens.
How had it all gone so wrong? Gaust shook his head. The Wing Commander had had no right to place him in such a precarious position. These people weren't interested in compromise! They wanted anarchy! The end to anything resembling civil discipline!
"Got a little warm in there," Garrey offered as the aircar started forward.
"I don't understand!" Gaust made a violent gesture with his hands. "Vermilion sheep have more sense than those dolts! We've got production schedules to meet! Rot them! A responsibility to Empire . . . and not to their lazy appetites! What do they think? They're here because the Emperor was rewarding them? Either they or their parents were sent here for punishment!"
Gaust wadded up his flimsies, notes on which he'd prepared his speech about the new era on Terguz. In disgust, he threw them from the aircar, watching them bounce across one of the walkways at the feet of pedestrians.
"Ignorant animals! That's what they are. Beasts, seeking to slake their gutter hunger for sloth. What do they think?
That the Empire will wind down its consumption because they don't want to work so hard?" He sputtered, "And worse ... Worse! They want a say in government?
These louts haven't an idea in their heads when it comes to government! What do they think? That I'll just step back and turn the administration of this planet over to unlanded, unwashed, ignorant laborers?"
"What are you going to tell the Wing Commander?" Garrey asked.
"What can I? That I've made a good faith effort, and they've as good as spit into my face. "
The aircar pulled up before his residence, the pillared false-front of the building sporting painted graffiti.
Gaust closed his eyes, breathing deeply. "And get that filth washed off my residence. "
"Should we call in additional security?" Garrey asked. Gaust waved him away.
"They're just stupid not dangerous. "
"You made a lot of them . . . well, they were unhappy, Sir. "
I ILet them be. If they're off their feed because I wouldn't yield, they'll really ache when Commander Seekore arrives with that ship. She'll put them back in line, and they'll wish they'd had a little more respect for me when I was on their side. "
At that, Gaust turned, back straight, and headed for his door.
Staffa woke from tortured dreams. The old familiar nightmare of being chased through dark corridors on a dying starship had played over and over. The faceless dead had pursued him, seeking to wreak their vengeance upon him before an explosion flung his naked body onto twisted sheets of torn steel.
He'd felt the cold steel cutting through his back, lancing his intestines, and shoving up through the unprotected skin on his belly. Meanwhile, the angry ghosts had gathered around and reached down for him with spectral fingers.
The sensation of invisible presences mixed with the dreams, drifting through his mind like a stygian mist, inserting thoughts, and exposing his deepest fears.
He sat up, fatigue like cobwebs sticking to his muscles and nerves. Stumbling into the toilet, he relieved himself and then stared into the small mirror.
His face bore little resemblance to the image he'd once known. Where a gray spark had once filled his eyes, now they stared back, bloodshot, possessed.
His face had turned haggard, a dark stubble on his cheeks.
Staffa combed out his long hair, aware that its luster had vanished. For a moment, he let it drape over his shoulders like a mantle, then he gathered it tightly into the ponytail to hang over his left ear. The clip snapped crisply into place.
To still the angry growl in his stomach, he gulped down a couple of energy sticks, then let himself out into the starry night. Two STU thumped knotted fists to their sternums in salute, one automatically reaching for his belt comm.
1No. Let me have some time before you alert the universe to the fact I've awakened. "
:'Yes, sir. Standard security only."
'Very well. " He'd have to put up with unobtrusive shadows following in his track. Otherwise, Ark would go berserk. Staffa walked across the compound, hating the glare of the lights. Beyond, he stepped into the welcome cloak of darkness, walking out among the trees to stare up at the stars.
Even from here, the blur of the Forbidden Borders besmirched the heavens, mocking him with their invincibility. He followed a faint path, replaying his conversation with the Mag Comm in his mind until he reached a rocky outcrop overlooking the dark valley below.
There he stood, soaking in the peace of the night, hearing only the chirring of the night insects.
I IPerhaps we're more alike than I would like to admit," Sinklar's voice said from behind him.
Staffa turned and peered into the darkness. He could barely make out Sinklar's figure where he sat shadowed, back propped against a pine tree.
14 1 wanted solitude. I should have remembered that you come up here."
Sinklar tossed something into the dark. It clattered dryly on the rocks, a stick from the sound of it. "I first came up
here after Gretta was murdered. It was just before the attack on Makarta. I was trying to put myself together, to grieve. The healing began here. Here I wanted to end it."
"And has it?"
Sinklar's nod could barely be seen. "I think so. I entered the archives today.
When I went back, the technicians chased me out. Otherwise, I'd still be there."
"You saw the globe then?"
"Better than that. I found a history book you missed on your visit. It's a history of the species. From the very beginning when we didn't look human, right up to the discovery of Targa. They called it Target in those days."
Staffa leaned his head back, eyes closed as he savored the scent of pine and soil. "So the mystery of our origins is solved? "
"Perhaps. The continental maps depicted in the book match those on the Earth globe. I've ordered the book to be copied immediately and the contents broadcast throughout Free Space. I think we've been missing a sense of who we are. Where we came from. Among other things, one of the technicians found an old data cube on one of the shelves. It will take more complicated deciphering than we can do here, but they think they can recover enough to translate the text. "
"That's better than I'd hoped. Nothing on the Forbidden Borders yet? "
"They've just begun to work on the place. By the time they shooed me out, they hadn't even broken the seal on the cabinets. "
Staffa remembered the day he'd entered with Kaylla
. "I stood in awe. Almost in worship."
"We are more alike than I thought." A pause. "How are you feeling? "
"In all honesty, I've felt better, Sinklar. What you really want to know is have I been compromised by the machine yet. The answer is still no."
"Staffa . . . I saw your fear in there. You've got to level with me. You are my security responsibility. I don't want to have to guess about your status.
Talk to me."
Where had the strength in Sinklar's voice come from? What had happened down there in the archives? He sounded so sure of himself. The lurking insecurity had vanished.
"You have healed indeed." He took a deep breath then picked his way through the rocks and seated himself. So weary. "Dealing with the machine is terrifying. I suppose we can all imagine having another presence in our minds, but the reality . . . well, it's something that has to be experienced. The Mag Comm is there, inside, sharing that last sanctuary of identity. "
Staffa steepled his fingers, watching a meteor streak across the sky. Maybe a dropped wrench or some other piece of garbage. "My plan was to open myself, let the machine read both my desperation and resolve. Let it know that if I failed to come to a reasonable solution, I would destroy it. :'If I'd known-"
'Yes, I'm aware that you would have disapproved. Nevertheless, the machine has dealt with subversion and deceit from the beginning. I wanted the ground rules immediately established so that we didn't have to fence for position. Not only that, I told you the truth. I must make the decision to employ the machine's talent. I can't delegate it. I must know that I'm not condemning our people. "
:'Which means we all have to trust you."
'Still worried about the resurrection of the Star Butcher? "
' 'No. But balancing humanity on your judgment doesn't leave me sleeping any too well."
"Me either," Staffa admitted dryly. "If you're not resting well now, wait until you hear the latest from the oracle of the golden helmet. The Mag Comm claims we can break the Forbidden Borders. It can be done through gravitational dissonance. If we're to believe the machine, it must be done very carefully or we'll create a disaster. Imagine one of those dense neutronic strings whipping through Free Space? The tidal effects alone would wreak havoc.
"We can break the Forbidden Borders? That doesn't sound so bad."
I "If we do it right, Sinklar. The Mag Comm insists that we consult it. I would presume that the timing will be critical. Perhaps to the nanosecond.
It's the rest that sends chills down my back. The machine is willing to bargain. In return for freeing us from the Forbidden Borders and running Free Space, it wants us to build machines for it. Drones with which it, too, can explore. In essence, we'd be providing it
with hands and feet. Little minions to go about and do its bidding.
"I see. So we're beyond just trusting it to run things, we have to trust it enough to let it loose? "
"That appears to be the machine's position. " Staffa paused. "How did the advice about the governor of Antillies turn out? "
"Hit the target dead center, it would appear. Kaylla immediately recognized the problem. Understood it better than I did."
"How is she?"
"As worried as the rest of us. " Sinklar paused. "And she's concerned about you. Her advice to me was to trust you. "
"I wouldn't. She's biased."
"You killed her husband and children and sold her into slavery. "
"I saved her life in the sewer under the Temple and again in the desert.
"She says she knows you better than anyone alive." "Yes, well, unfortunately .
. . she's probably right about that. Wait a minute. I thought you didn't like Seddi Magisters. "
Sinklar uttered a dry laugh. "I might make an exception in her case."
-I* would if I were you. She's as fine a human being as you'll find anywhere-even if half the time she wishes she 'I
could shut me out of her life. As to the machine, I don't know what to think.
I came out here hoping to experience some divine revelation. Instead, I can only argue myself into and out of accepting its offer."
"What else did it tell you?"
"'That it needs us. It claims to have been one of the aliens. Apparently they're some sort of dense crystals floating around in space. We were right about the Forbidden Borders. They trapped us here. The machine was to teach us to be rational. Hence all that business about God, the quanta, and human rationality that we talked about."
"I don't understand."
"We think of time as linear. A leads to B which leads to C and so forth.
Imagine an intelligence that is timeless and with a reality, a view of the universe, that is constantly
reinforced from the past. The background microwave radiation filling the universe is what they call their song. My speculation is that it's like a constant retelling of a story. Or perhaps of a history and sociology combined.
The Others are essentially immortal, and since the song carries at light speed, they hear and re-sing what has been traveling through space for billions of years. By re-singing it, they know the message will be heard exactly the same in another couple, of billion years in some other part of the universe. "
"I ihought we'd studied background radiation, looking for-(oherent signals?"
- "We have. Maybe we can't decipher it through the heterodyne they create?
Who knows? They don't have organic brains. These things are crystalline, absolute. We can't comprehend the basic assumptions they make about the universe. "
"Rotted Gods, how do we deal with something like that?
"That's the crux of the problem. We began broadcasting microwaves on their wavelength-and to them, it was probably static. You see, we were changing the song. "
"So they put us in the bottle to teach us Right Thought. Civilize us so we wouldn't change the song? That's ridiculous. "
"Is it? You've just seen the archives. How did it feel to pick up that book and see pictures of your past? Suppose a group of aliens began rewriting your history-not just selectively but every moment. Sure, the Others have tried to do just that to us in an attempt to keep us ignorant of our origins beyond the Forbidden Borders, but history is the only sacrament of a species. It's the record, imperfect though it may be, of who we are, where we came from. Our identity is found in two places. It runs in our blood, in our genetic structure, and the other half is our history."
"All right, you've made the point. And you're right. But why didn't they just ask us to stop what we were doing?" "Keep in mind, we're talking about an intelligence so
alien we can't conceive of their motives anymore than they can conceive of ours. Maybe that idea, as simple as it seems to us, didn't fit their framework of understanding."
"And the Mag Comm claims to be one of them? A history stealer? Forget it. Let's nuke the mountain and get on about our business."
"Ah, a simple solution. The Mag Comm isn't that simple. It's been corrupted.
Your attack scared it. It realized it was not immortal, that it could be destroyed. Worse, it's been dealing with humans, experiencing the universe through human-tinted lenses. The Others won't sing to it anymore. It fears isolation. So long as we survive, the machine will have us to interact with."
Sinklar thought for a moment, chin propped on his palm. "All the more reason it might want us in a captive situation. We could be its own little entertaining population. Pus take it, doesn't that sound like a fascinating future?"
"That possibility can't be ruled out."
Sinklar threw his arms up. "How are we supposed to analyze the motives of a mutant machine that's part alien?" "Congratulations, you've redefined the original problem. "
"Blasting it from orbit sounds like a more reasonable solution. "
Staffa reached down, picking up a rock. The cool weight gave him something substantial to hold. He ran a finger over the rough surface. "Sinklar, consider our situation in a grander context. We now know there are at least thr
ee galactic intelligences: ourselves, the aliens, and the Mag Comm. Let's give this some serious thought. What are our ethical responsibilities? "
"You're not going Seddi on me?"
"Absolutely. What are our moral responsibilities? Do we exterminate this intelligence? Just snuff it out?"
"The Others, as you call them, are willing to do that to US. "
"Great. We had three intelligent species in the galaxy, and now we only have one that sings songs in space. Why? Because the second form of intelligence blew up the third, then destroyed itself trying to break out of the trap created by the first. That's a remarkable legacy to send back to God Mind, isn't it? Forget intelligence. It's a doomed process."
Sinklar sighed. "All right. I don't know that I'd destroy it. I do know that I'm not about to let humanity founder. We've been toyed with, Staffa. We've been used. I've seen the faces from the past staring up from that book. I know what and where we've come from. What's wrong with linear evolution? People used stone tools once. Now we travel between the stars and kill ourselves by the billions because we can't get out of this prison your Others have placed us in. I won't have it."
"And neither will 1. The trick is to figure a safe way out of the bottle. If the Mag Comm is right, we'll need its computational ability to figure out the physics to break the Forbidden Borders. If we screw it up, we'll have cataclysm.
"And we'll have an unpredictable intelligence loose in space with us."
Staffa nodded. "I know." He got to his feet, pacing nervously while his cape billowed in the wind. "Curious, isn't it? At this terrible time in our history, we must come to grips not only with the Forbidden Borders but also with ourselves. With who we are and where we are going. We are at one of the most important crossroads of human history. "
Sinklar sat in silence. From somewhere, he'd picked up another stick and begun chipping the bark with his thumbnail. He laughed. "Funny, isn't it? I keep remembering all those faces. Important men and women. Supposedly immemorial, like the sculpted face of Tybalt the Imperial First over4ooking the palace gardens. Now, at this time, a clone and a freak will make the determination.
We can't even be sure we're human, you and 1. "
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