by Paul Anlee
“Maybe it was some kind of converted colony,” the Good Brother suggested helpfully. Hopefully.
“Maybe,” Darak acknowledged. “They appear to be empty.” He cocked his head the other way. “Hmm. That’s…odd.”
“Odd? How so?”
“I’m not sure. There’s no electrical activity in any of the tunnels at all. I would’ve expected some construction or maintenance Cybrids to have extended their activities a little bit outside the Deplosion generator. But there’s nothing outside the metal hull. It’s almost as if the tunnels were shielded to prevent EM emissions.”
“Maybe it was shielded for use as a research station,” Stralasi suggested.
“That’s possible, but that kind of thing is usually limited to specialized labs or observation chambers. With this one, it’s like the whole place has been designed to hide something.”
Stralasi did not like the sound of that. “Perhaps we should select a different element.”
“No,” Darak said. “This one will do fine.”
* * *
Timothy spent hours wandering around aimlessly inside the roughly carved corridors of Secondus while Darya brooded. He’d already been all over Darya’s secret asteroid base; there was nowhere left to explore and he was bored. He’d inspected workshops and machinery he didn’t understand, picked up parts of instruments, examined them, and tried to imagine their function.
Darya had gone into one of the observation rooms, a shallow cave with one side open to the stars. He studiously avoided the area, giving her space and time to think about Mary’s predicament.
He still didn’t fully understand what had happened inworld, but he knew better than to pepper Darya with his questions. Seeing Mary lying there in the dungeon, chained and helpless as four Trillians subjected her to torture, had been unbearable.
He’d only known Mary a few days, only met her for the first time a few months ago, but he couldn’t get it out of his head. He couldn’t imagine what Darya must be going through. She and Mary had been close friends, co-workers, and co-conspirators for millions of years. Seeing Mary in such anguish, and not being able to rescue her must be excruciating for Darya.
So, why didn’t Darya charge in there, fight off the Trillians, and save Mary, if she were truly such a good friend? What good was a flash of light? He had to admit, he was more than a little disappointed in Darya. She was smart—brilliant, really—fast, strong, and confident. There had to be some explanation for this sudden, apparent helplessness. He could only guess that she’d calculated she couldn’t win a direct fight there, not with Trillian in such wide control of Vacationland.
Complexities, wheels within wheels, that I could never understand.
He set down some contraption he’d been pretending to inspect and drifted to another instrument. He pushed a few virtual buttons and twirled virtual dials, pretending the machine was on. Maybe I’ll have better luck in the garden—he thought.
By Casa DonTon standards, Darya’s humble garden could hardly be thought of as a garden at all. The small, climate-controlled room housed a few unremarkable plants, insects, and birds. Over generations, the winged arthropods and aves had adapted to the much lower gravity of Secondus than their ancestors had been used to on Origin. Their flight was more about propulsion and maneuvering than about staying aloft. Still, they buzzed around him, and they sang, and they gave Timothy a sense of what it might be like to be human in a world of life.
Perhaps the dark vacuum of so much empty space is starting to weigh on me. Why did God fill His universe with so much of it if He intended His creation to be a gift to humanity? It’s almost as if He intended to give the whole thing to beings better suited to it, beings like the Cybrids.
He meandered down the long tunnel leading to the garden, deep in the core of the asteroid, when the alarms went off.
He had no idea what the clamor was about, and he didn’t know how to access Darya’s control system for more information.
Find Darya!—was his only thought. Maybe she needed him.
He sped back up the tunnel into the main labs and took the corridor toward the surface. Darya would be near the observation room. Some of his tentacles extended from their ports involuntarily as he imagined himself arriving just in time to be her swashbuckling protector.
I wish we were inworld. I have weapons there. Not to mention experience fighting. He had no idea how a Cybrid might fight in the real universe.
He turned into a side corridor and almost collided with Darya racing toward him. They swerved and pulled to a stop meters from each other.
“Are you okay?” Darya asked simultaneously with Timothy’s “What happened?”
“I’m alright,” Timothy replied. “Why are the alarms sounding?”
In answer, Darya spun and headed back up the tunnel she’d come from. “Follow me. I’ll show you,” she transmitted as she sped off.
Timothy went after her.
They reached the observation room and Darya pulled close to the opening. “What do you see?”
Timothy scanned with his visual sensors near maximum. “Not much. A few stars, some gaseous clouds.”
He hesitated, and recalculated to check his archives. “Wait! Where are all the stars? The sky here should be filled with light.”
“I don’t think we’re ‘there’ anymore.”
“What do you mean? Where are we?”
“Somewhere far away, and dark,” Darya answered. “This could only be Alum. I think he’s found us.”
* * *
“That should about do it,” Darak announced.
“Do what?”
“All three Deplosion array elements are in place. I’ve returned their supervisory Cybrids back to where they came from, and I’ve disconnected Alum’s direct control and communications from them.”
He inspected the last array element, an odd partly-natural, partly-artificial hybrid, with satisfaction.
Stralasi was getting used to sifting through Darak’s deluge of information to arrive at a point he could grasp. “So, everything’s ready for you to begin your work, then?”
“Almost.” Darak stared at the natural, rocky end of the asteroid.
“That’s still bothering you, isn’t it? True, it is a little strange but I can’t see why it should interest you so much. Does it really matter to your present purposes where it came from or why it’s riddled—no pun intended— with tunnels, so long as it’s empty and serves your needs?”
Stralasi waited while Darak considered the question. Surely, Darak had a ready answer. Lately, though, the man had taken to inserting thoughtful pauses into his conversations. Almost as if he’s practicing at being more human.
After a few seconds, Darak answered, “I’ve sampled some 453,287 array elements, statistically speaking, a more than valid sampling of the total population. This is the only element with this configuration. Coupled with its obviously ancient construction date, and its improbable location, I’m curious about its history.”
“I guess that would make it interesting. What are you planning?”
“I’ve already queried the control systems in the synthetic portion. They don’t see anything unusual about their configuration.”
“I sense a ‘but’ is on the way.”
“But…they’re also unaware of any remaining natural asteroid connected to the constructed portion, even though all their maneuvering systems clearly compensate for the extra asymmetrical mass. Someone has tampered here.”
“Hmm,” Stralasi said, “that is intriguing. How could no one have noticed it before? Wouldn’t someone have spotted the discrepancy between the plans and the actual?”
“You’d think so, but someone’s hidden their tampering very well. They’ve hidden the presence of the natural part from the constructed part, and hidden what’s inside the tunnels.” Darak inserted another of his thoughtful pauses. “I think we need to go inside.”
“Inside the array element?”
“Maybe later. First
, I want to look in those tunnels. Would you like to come?”
Stralasi didn’t answer immediately. Have I had enough adventure for a while? What about simple curiosity? How risky could a bunch of ancient, abandoned tunnels be?
He thought of the other places he’d considered risk-free but had turned out to be the opposite. Still, Darak made a good case. This array element, this asteroid, was interesting.
The monk shrugged. “Why not? Sure.”
Before he finished speaking, they were in a long tunnel that opened into some kind of cavern. No, it was a room. Some kind of workshop, judging by all the machinery and components lying about.
“This isn’t very old,” Darak remarked, “and some of it is still active. This area is exceptionally well-shielded; I detected no working electronics in these tunnels from outside.”
Stralasi started to ask a question, but Darak held up a finger. “A moment, please, Brother,” he said. He cocked his head, as if listening to the wind.
Brother? He hasn’t called me Brother in months—Stralasi thought. He held his tongue and waited.
“It appears we’re not alone,” Darak stated, breaking the silence.
They floated down the corridor away from the workshop. They accelerated until the occasional features of the tunnel wall moved by too fast to distinguish. They passed several branching tunnels before turning down one of them.
“Why are we moving like this?” Stralasi asked. “Wouldn’t it be easier to simply shift to wherever the other person is?”
“With all this shielding, their location is a little difficult to pinpoint. Moving through the tunnels this way is helping me to triangulate their position. I don’t think they’re shifting; they seem to be moving by some form of rocket propulsion.”
They went another hundred meters, turned down another branch corridor, and turned again a few kilometers later.
“A-ha, I have them now,” Darak said. He shifted himself and the monk into the middle of a cave that opened into deep space.
Two Cybrids floated near the mouth of the cave.
One of them moved forward, and its tentacles whipped out menacingly.
“Stay back,” it said.
“We will not harm you,” Darak replied.
“Not without a fight,” the Cybrid in the rear said.
Darak shook his head—I know that voice.
He squinted to better see the Cybrid who’d just spoken, and addressed her. “At the moment, your friend is the only one exhibiting any aggression.”
“We both know what little use that is,” she replied.
Darak was confused. “And how exactly do we know that?”
“Your powers are more than a match for anything either one of us could throw at you,” the Cybrid answered.
The front Cybrid moved a little closer.
Maneuvering for a strike, Darak assessed. He pointed to the Cybrid’s extended manipulators. “I’d prefer you retract those, please. I only want to talk.”
“I’m sure that you would,” the aggressor answered.
Stralasi detected hints of an odd accent in its Standard tongue.
“Those who are assured of victory always like to laud it over the defeated,” the menacing Cybrid said.
On the last word, the Cybrid bolted forward under rocket power. Its tentacles slashed and stabbed at the clear shell that maintained a breathable atmosphere around Darak and Stralasi. Its slithering metallic limbs drew into sharp edges with vicious points that could have gutted or speared an unarmored man. They bounced harmlessly off the protective surface of the sphere.
The Cybrid turned its propulsion ports toward the two men.
Stralasi got a brief glimpse of the hell-fires of matter-antimatter mixing in mutual conversion to pure energy before the reaction winked out.
“Sorry, I can’t allow that,” Darak said. He glanced at the second Cybrid and said, “Nor that.”
“Nor what?” the Good Brother asked. He hadn’t seen any threatening moves from the other Cybrid.
“She was attempting a suicidal mixing of her MAM engine fuel,” Darak answered. “The matter-antimatter reaction would have destroyed this entire array element.”
“So it is you,” the closer Cybrid said.
“And who might you be?” Darak asked.
“Alum,” the far Cybrid answered.
Stralasi’s eyes widened. Alum? Was that possible? Had he been traveling this entire time with the Living God himself? Should he fall to his knees once again and profess his ignorance, his sins? Maybe his knees weren’t enough. Maybe he should prostrate himself and grovel before the Lord. Beg forgiveness.
Darak laughed.
“What is so funny?” asked the Cybrid with the feminine voice.
“You two are,” Darak replied. “Do you actually think I am your god?”
“Who but God can move among the stars at will? Who but God can change antimatter into normal matter with a thought?”
Stralasi and Darak stared at each other, and Darak laughed again.
“Good point,” he said. “Who but a god?”
Stralasi felt his knees grow weak. He slumped and was about to throw himself to the ground when Darak answered his own question.
“A scientist, that’s who. I am no more your god than…than…than this man.” He pointed to Stralasi. The Good Brother’s heart skipped a beat.
“Scientist,” the Cybrid repeated. “That’s a term I haven’t heard in a long time.”
“It’s not in common use anymore among humans,” Darak agreed. “Few Cybrids call themselves anything but technician.”
“If not Alum, then who are you?”
Darak bowed, “My name is Darak Legsu. I am a wanderer, explorer and, yes, a scientist.”
“Darak?” the Cybrid repeated. “The name is familiar. Have we met?”
“It was not a common name when I first took it. Who might you be?”
“My name is Darya, and this is Timothy.”
“And this is Brother Stralasi, recently on leave from the Alumit,” Darak pointed to the Good Brother. “But if it’s not too much to ask, I would prefer your complete designation.”
The Cybrid hesitated. “So you can report me?”
Stralasi intervened, having at last remembered Darak’s battle with the Angels, his mission to oppose Alum’s Divine Plan.
“I can assure you, Darak has no connection to the Living God, other than to oppose the construction and operation of the Deplosion array.”
“You know what this place is, then?” Darya asked.
“I know the purpose of the array,” Darak admitted. “Despite Brother Stralasi’s support, I am still uncertain of my position with regards to Alum’s Divine Plan.”
“It is evil.”
“Evil is a strong word, a black and white word in a universe of color.”
“Nonetheless, it applies,” Darya insisted.
“Perhaps. We shall see. I take it you are not the Station Cybrid. I can’t imagine Alum appointing anyone with such beliefs to be in charge of an array element.”
“Long ago, Alum appointed me to build and maintain this place,” Darya confessed. “I’ve altered the original plans somewhat.”
“Somewhat,” Darak grinned.
“I also managed to find a replacement for my maintenance duties.”
“Impressive. Alum does not normally permit such unauthorized delegations.”
Darya bobbed in acknowledgement of the compliment. “I had more important things to attend to.”
“I would be honored to know your complete designation.”
“Surely, you can simply read it yourself.”
“I could. I do not like to invade minds when it’s not required.”
“When is reaming a mind ever required?” Darya’s voice conveyed her bitterness. Timothy made a noise that sounded like throat clearing.
“Ha!” Darak laughed. “I take it from your friend’s reaction you may have found something like that necessary yourself. Perhaps, re
cently?”
Darya chose not to respond to his baiting.
“In our travels from the frontier, we have visited a number of Cybrid stations,” Darak continued. “In order to disguise ourselves, I’ve had to interfere with perceptual processing. It was…an unfortunate necessity. Forcing your designation from your mind would be an indulgence, not a necessity.”
“Thank you for your courtesy,” Darya replied. “I will return the respect you have shown us. My full designation is DAR143147 and my friend, Timothy, has the full designation GER754738.”
“DAR143147?” Darak gasped. “DAR-K? Is it possible?”
In all their travels and adventures, Stralasi had never seen such surprise on the man’s face. He couldn’t help but ask, “Is what possible?”
“DAR-K,” Darak whispered, and then, “Kathy,” as if that explained everything.
46
“My name is Darya. Cybrid designation, DAR143147. Who is Kathy?”
“You are,” Darak answered, bewildered. “At least, at one time, that designation belonged to a Cybrid whose mind was templated on Kathy Liang.”
“I have no memory of a Kathy Liang.”
“Be that as it may, she was you; you were her.”
“I’ve always been Darya. I have a few memories of a Darak Legsu, but that was so long ago. They are an insignificant percentage of my total experience.”
“That was me, is me. I thought you were destroyed.”
“I feel intact. Complete. True, there’s a gap of some millions of years while I was inactive, but there’s very little missing in the memories I have.”
“Someone must have revived you, and tweaked your concepta and persona around the damaged parts. I can probably fix that.”
“I would prefer you didn’t poke around in my conceptual structures without my permission.”
For a moment, Darak considered doing exactly that, even without permission, but he agreed. He let go of his pain and his expectations. They could fix this. “Okay, until I have your trust, I will respect your wishes.”
“Thank you.” Darya’s voice was overlaid with a tinge of sarcasm. She extended a tentacle and pointed it outward. “Where have you moved us?”