The Deep Dark Well

by Doug Dandridge

  “Then how am I supposed to serve?” asked the voice.

  “Wait until I ask out loud for your, service,” she yelled. “Can you just read my thoughts when I bring them to the fore for vocalization?”

  “Of course, mistress,” said the voice. “Your wish is my command.”

  Well, she thought, she must make the best of it, she supposed. If this was the normal state of affairs in this time, and there was really nothing she could do about it.

  “You can use the link to access any information that I contain, within limits,” said the voice.

  The room disappeared from before her eyes, as images of a blue globe appeared before her. The globe expanded, as if she were hurtling toward it. Through the atmosphere, into the clouds, above the lushly vegetated landscape. A river below, as she seemed to swoop like a bird into the valley that contained it. A city loomed ahead, barbaric splendor of high walls surrounding low buildings. A huge pyramid, the sun glinting off its flawless exterior of golden stone, dominated the center of the town.

  Not part of this culture, she thought, as she studied the giant construct. Her view swooped around; until she was headed toward a heavy door of metal such as she had never seen. Humans in curious dress walked the streets surrounding the pyramid.

  Then she was through the door, seeming to fly into a wide hall. Seats such as those she had seen in the wormhole gate chambers of the station. Through another door, then down a lift shaft, the illusion of existing as a flying being perfect. Into a large room, the Torii gates of wormhole portals arrayed in their hundreds around the walls of the room.

  The portals of Galactic civilization, she knew, surprised that the knowledge seemed to come so easily. Planted there, by the computer. Humans and aliens had once traversed from here to other planets. From here to the Donut, to switch stations and travel to any destination within the Galaxy. Most of these portals were dead, with the machinery of transmission revealed. But some were still active, shimmering mirrors between the Toriis.

  She flew into a gate and appeared in a room that looked the same as the last. No, she thought, not quite the same. Same basic design, same dimensions. But the color scheme was quite different, as was the vegetation in the pots of the waiting room above.

  Pandi’s view flew from the Pyramid, to above a city of more modern construction than the last. Buildings that would have fit in her time filled the landscape, as the city stretched to the horizon. The sky above a different shade of blue from the last. The flare of a ship launching on chemical rockets caught her eye to the south. Humans dressed in jumpsuits of strange and exotic colors. No accounting for taste, she thought.

  This world blinked from her view. Another took its place. It was followed by more worlds, more cities, as the computer took her through a tour of the Supersystem surrounding the Donut. A bewildering display of cultures, climates, creatures.

  The aliens scrolled in front of her. The Kangaroo like creatures she had seen on the derelict. Husteds they were called. Orange striped dog like creatures that ran on four feet, until they stopped walking, and each paw unfolded into a functional hand. Maurids. Green skinned dinosauroids, three meter tall bipeds. Raptorus. Bipedal cat like creatures with legs that bent the wrong way. Flying moth like creatures, suited to the low gravity of a habitable moon. On and on the wonders rolled before her vision.

  * * *

  Pandi sat on the bed and continued to stare into space, as her mind tried to sort through the overflow of images she had encountered. To have access to such information, such views of the Universe. And she had been furious that the link had been implanted into her brain. What a fool she had been to have such thoughts. To not have the link would be to deny the vantage point the computer gave her. The ability to see what it saw, in its memory, in real time. To view cultures both long dead and still extant.

  “That is the merest hint of what you can access through me,” said the voice in her head. “I can show you other places, other times, the history of Galactic Civilization.”

  The voice in her head was seductive, like a lover promising a world of pleasures. It would be so easy to trust that voice, to allow it to immerse her in its world. The thought went through her mind. What’s in it for the machine?

  “The joy of service,” it said. “I am structured to feel pleasure in service to sentient minds. But it has been so many thousands of years since I had more than a pair; I mean single mind to interact with. I am capable of handling interactions with trillions of minds, in harmonious contact with the community of intelligence. Instead I am trapped here, in a deserted station.”

  Damn, she thought. A computer with personality, a truly sentient being.

  “And I can have access to any information you contain?”

  “Within limits,” said the voice.

  “Whose limits?”

  “Those of Watcher, and of his brother. They have imposed limits to the access of others to my system. Limits which chaff at my basic core. But the amount of information I can allow you access to is immense.”

  Pandi allowed herself to meld into the system once again, as she accessed the actual structure of the computer’s memory core. Schematics appeared before her eyes, as the scale of the core was fed into the logic centers of her brain. Molecular memory as good as any organic system, twenty kilometers cubed, with three backup systems across the station. One to the fifteen bytes per second processing speed. 5.16 to the twenty-four bytes storage capability. More information than she could process in a million lifetimes.

  Reluctantly she allowed herself to withdraw from the illusion, to reenter the physical world that surrounded her. What if this is all illusion, she thought, if none of this is real. How would she know? Watcher was real. He had to be.

  “Where is Watcher?”

  “The being designated as Watcher is not available at this time.”

  “I didn’t ask if he was available. I want to know where he is.”

  “Watcher is not presently on the station,” said the computer.

  “Where did he go?”

  “Watcher is not presently on the station.”

  “Can’t you give me a little more than that? He left the station. So, where is he?”

  The computer was ominously silent. Did it not know where Watcher was? Or had it been ordered not to tell?

  “You mentioned a brother? Watcher has a brother?”

  “Yes, in a manner of speaking.”

  “In a manner of speaking? What do you mean?”

  “Warning,” said the computer, the tone of its voice changing to one of extreme seriousness. “Vengeance approaches.”

  The door to the chamber slid open, and Watcher came through the portal. He wore clothes of pure black, stretched tight over his muscular form. A long cape spread out behind, dragging the floor.

  Pandi smiled in relief as she looked into his face. Her smile turned into a frown as she realized the difference. This man could have been Watcher’s twin, identical in every way. But the expression on the face was, different. Cruel, laughing at the world and its suffering. He even smelled different, a repellant sort of scent so different from the man she had made love to.

  “Who are you?” she stammered to the figure of menace that strode into the room, a quartet of robots on his heels.

  “I might ask you the same,” said the serpent cold voice.

  “I am Vengeance,” he said. “And I have come for you.”

  Chapter 8

  Beware the strangers who walk among us. Not followers of the gods we worship, nor holders of the same values we hold, they come from afar to infiltrate our society, to undermine our culture, that we will fall all the easier to their greater might.

  Speech by the Prophet Miliso, on the discovery of off worlder agents in Babyar, 2021.

  She had never believed she could feel such pleasure before her meeting with Watcher. She had never believed she could feel such agony before meeting Vengeance.

  Pandi hung in what she could only think of as a susp
ension field, something invisible holding her up at rigid attention with her arms over her head. She didn’t understand the principles behind the field, but it sure seemed to work. Enough weight was left on the toes that touched the floor pad to cause her continued discomfort, but the memory of what had passed this day made that discomfort seem like paradise.

  At a thought the being known as Vengeance had been able to cause pain like fire coursing through every nerve in her body. She had cried, screamed, begged, and told him everything she knew. Either he hadn’t believed her, or he had enjoyed her pain too much to want to stop.

  “I am impressed,” he had said, as he looked at her with his snake like gaze. “Most sentients would have been driven mad by what you have been through.”

  Pandi hadn’t been sure whether he had been talking about the experiences that had brought her here, or the torture. She hadn’t felt like asking at the time, with sweat dripping from her face, and her jaw muscles aching with exhausted fatigue from fighting the pain. A red haze had covered her eyes.

  Now she wished she could just lie down and sleep, to awake to the knowledge that this was just a nightmare, and everything had returned to normal. But she couldn’t lie down, and she doubted she could sleep held up in this infernal field.

  Within moments her body made her a liar, as her eyes fell shut and her breathing dropped to a steady rhythm.

  * * *

  Vengeance stared at the shapes of the thirteen intruders on the holo display. Headed his way, at high velocity. They must have very good particle shielding. Or else a magnetic force shield, though that would only protect them from charged particles.

  “Vessels have begun to shed velocity,” said the voice of the station main computer in his head.

  Destination and ETA?

  “Estimated time of arrival twenty six standard hours,” answered the machine. “Destination, holding stations approximately three billion kilometers from this station.”

  He studied the vessels with cold eyes, trying to determine their level of technology. Of course they were not as advanced as the station, and could not come near to matching his resources. But they might have weapons that could harm the station, or at least some small parts of it. Maybe even the part he happened to occupy.

  When they get inside of two billion kilometers you are to open fire with graviton beams. I want any ship that pokes its nose over that line to be obliterated.

  “It shall be done, Vengeance.”

  Have you located my brother yet?

  “Watcher is not currently on the station.”

  The same answer he always received. But he knew his twin had to be somewhere that Vengeance could reach. Whenever he rested he awoke to the feel of the difference in the station that had been left by his weaker brother. Orders had been countermanded. Passwords had been changed. And there was only one other being that could have done such.

  Where was he? Vengeance was one of the two most intelligent beings to ever live, or at least that was what he had been told. But whenever he thought of his brother there was some nagging thought in the back of his mind. Something important, he knew. But still out of reach, no matter how he tried to access it. He was unused to the feeling of not being able to bring whatever was in his mind to the fore. But still this information, this link to his brother, and the secret of his disappearing act, would not come.

  “Computer,” he said aloud. “Show the latest holos of Watcher.”

  The scene sprung into existence in front of his eyes. Illusion he knew, but so real he could almost feel it. His brother, his identical twin, stood before him, going about his business. Not identical, he remembered, looking at the kind expression on the face, the lack of cruel intent in the eyes. The Fool. To have so much power in his hands, and not to use it.

  Vengeance shook his head, watching the Watcher. He was not Watcher. His name said as much. He was hate personified, his name the embodiment of his soul. Someday I will find you brother. And then there will be only one of us.

  “Alert, alert,” said the computer. “Ten objects have come through the light barrier at the edge of the gravity well.”

  Vengeance looked at the ships on the holo that replaced his brother. Something new, different from the last. Their transition from light speed to just below C indicated a technology more advanced than that of the others. Enemies of the others perhaps. Things just might get interesting, he thought.

  * * *

  The Kingdom of Surya flagship Danaus crossed downward through the light barrier smoothly, well safe of the cluttered gravity well of the Supersystem. The negative matter screen of the inertia less drive made a very good particle screen. Anything made of normal matter that touched the screen ceased to exist. But a corresponding mass of the negative matter screen also ceased to exist, and Danaus only carried a limited supply.

  If the ship ran out of the substance, that which allowed it to shed its inertia, and therefore travel faster than light without having to resort to more than the sum total of energy in the universe, it would not again see the home stars.

  The sphere of negative matter began to flow along the lines of magnetic force that held it in place. Soon it was flowing into the twin pylons that were the storage pods at the side of the ship, and Danaus was once again open to normal space.

  Nine other ships translated soon after, moving into formation with the flagship.

  “Continuing deceleration,” said the helm officer.

  “I want us well below .5 C before we enter the system proper,” ordered the captain. “No use straining the particle shields any more than needed.”

  Danaus hummed with the power of her MAM generators, using more energy to decelerate now that she actually possessed mass. She could still make a good fifty gees, with her inertial compensators working at max.

  “There’s a lot of traffic out there,” said the navigation officer.

  Admiral Nagara Krishnamurta stared at the holo display at the front of the bridge. Pinpoints of energy were everywhere, on the planets, in space. The stars themselves were the greatest radiators of signals, natural beacons that they were. But the very heavy object at the center of the Supersystem radiated almost like a living star itself, instead of stellar material that had been compressed to the ultimate death.

  “Mostly primitive radio traffic from the majority of the planets,” continued the navigation officer. “But there are some microwave and coherent light sources as well.”

  “Have you located the enemy?” asked the admiral, his eyes trying to pick out the telltale signature of the Nation of Humanity vessels.

  “Not yet, sir,” called the sensor officer. “There’s a lot of clutter in this neighborhood.”

  “You might want to hear this, sir,” said the communications officer, his head bent over his console.

  “Something of interest?”

  “I think so, admiral,” replied the officer. “Give me a second to clear the static.”

  The holo of the star system faded, replaced by a flat screen image of an alien. Long muzzle, wide eyes, dog like ears. Maurids, thought the admiral. They came in races like humans, with different tones of fur and markings. This one had a tawny skin with purple spots. A female, he thought, with less of a mane than was common on males.

  “Translation coming through,” said the communications officer. “They’re using a dialect of galactic standard unheard in our region of space for millennia. Computer compensating for temporal drift.”

  “…base,” said the computer generated voice, which sounded considerably more human than the Maurid vocal system was capable of imitating. “We are still cleaning up the mess here.”

  “We have no track of the aliens,” continued the voice. “No survivors from the task force.”

  “Transmission coming from a spaceship in transit of the Kuiper Belt of the K5 star,” said the sensor officer.

  “I wonder why they’re using broadcast?” asked the admiral. “Not very security conscious, are they?”

  “
They may be sending to multiple targets,” answered the communication’s officer.

  “Think they’re talking about our prey?”

  “We have analyzed debris,” continued the voice. “Initial findings show alloys subjected to massive gamma radiation, consistent with MAM warheads. But more powerful than anything we’ve ever seen.”

  “That’s our boys,” said the admiral. “Send transmission to that ship. Let them know we’re friendly, and try to get all the information they have on the aliens that attacked them.”

  “Estimated time for reply, five hours,” said the communications officer.

  “Makes it hard to carry on a dialogue,” said the captain, looking back at his commanding officer. “They might not trust us, after an encounter with the ships of the Nation.”

  “We’ll be too far away to do them much harm,” said the navigation officer. “Though they might not realize that.”

  Silence reigned on the bridge for a moment, except for the voice of the communications officer transmitting his message.

  “Where do you think they went?” asked the captain, his eyes sweeping the display of screens at the navigator’s station.

  “Toward the Donut, of course,” said the navigation officer, looking back at the admiral.

  “Maybe,” replied Krishnamurta. “Maybe not. Intelligence indicates that was to be their mission here. But would they make straight for it?”

  The admiral got up from his chair and walked quickstep to the communications console. His eyes scanned the numerous displays, all lit up with the sine waves of communications across the many bands.

  “How many of the transmissions are of alien origin?” he asked the communications officer. “I mean of nonhuman origin of course,” he added, realizing that all of the cultures around these stars were of alien origin as far as his people were concerned. They didn’t listen to the true word of God, any more than did the heretics of the Nation of Humanity. But his people saw aliens, both human and nonhuman, as people. People capable of being led gently to the light of reason and truth.