by J. N. Chaney
A long moment of silence followed. Conover finally broke it, asking, “What happened to them?”
“They died. They fought, and they died. And I have since waited for my next assignment, as well as the arrival of the Messenger. Now, that timeline has begun.”
“Four thousand,” Leira said, shaking her head. “All dead.”
“And who knows how many others?” Dash added. Just as he’d actually observed the Unseen in the memory playbacks triggered by installing some of the previous power cores in the Archetype, he’d also seen vast, sweeping overviews of the war on its galactic scale. Compared to what that implied, four thousand was probably a proverbial drop into an ocean planet.
“To answer your question, billions,” Custodian said.
The air hummed with unspoken loss until Leira cleared her throat. “Anyway, there’s lots here. How about showing us around?” She looked at the others. “I don’t know about you, but I’d like to start sleeping somewhere other than aboard the Slipwing, or on the floor somewhere near the engine room.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Custodian said. “Since you are living, organic beings who consume food, I’m sure you will be interested in all of the various amenities available.”
“Some of us more than others,” Viktor said, grinning at Conover, who blushed crimson.
They passed through a seemingly endless sprawl of crew quarters. Dash found it comforting that the Unseen, for all of their almost supernatural sophistication, still needed to sleep, eat, and engage in other sorts of organic activities. It meant there were beds—literally hundreds of them, with space for hundreds more. They could each pick a place to sleep, and still barely be within sight of anyone else. As they explored the expansive hab, though, they settled on keeping themselves more or less together. Dash suggested they could spread out but should still remain close enough that no one could end up isolated. The fact that the station was just so big actually bothered him a bit. All of that empty space had a weight, a pressure, and it kept the crew closer together out of sheer instinct.
He swallowed his discomfort. He hadn’t even realized that living in cramped little spaces like the Slipwing might have given him a touch of agoraphobia, but just thinking about all of that emptiness around them made him take a long moment to adjust his concept of shipboard life. The Forge was an old thing, but new to Dash, and that meant he had to change, and quickly. He squared his shoulders, gave a friendly nod to everyone, and walked on, careful to school his features into an observant mask.
Then, they saw the lounges.
“What is—whoa. This is badass,” Conover said, summing up the Unseen approach to leisure space in one word.
“Like a lounge? A recroom?” Leira asked.
“I think so,” Dash said.
Leira crossed to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the place, making its exterior wall seemingly almost non-existent.
“Hell of a view,” she said as Dash joined her.
It was. The window, either by chance or design, offered a stunning scene. They were close enough to see the gas giant the Forge had been orbiting while encased in the moon. Its swirling surface was mesmerizing. Beyond that lay the galaxy’s center, creating a condensed array of stars, a blanket of light that stretched from one end of the view to the other. Dash reached out and touched the window, confirming it was actually there. His hand did, indeed, encounter something solid, but he left no fingerprints on it. It might have been another force-field, but it sure felt like something of substance.
He turned away from the window and looked around. “This place needs a bar. Maybe some music, too.”
“Hey, maybe some day we can bring in live bands,” Leira said. “Get this place making some credits.”
“I know you’re joking,” Dash said, “but the idea that this place could someday be about more than just war is…nice. I like it.”
“That’s very introspective of you.”
“You guys always seem so surprised when it turns out I have some depth to my character.”
Leira gave him a grin. “Sometimes I forget you don’t just break things. You have—layers. That’s it. A man of layers.”
Dash preened, straightening his shirt. “I’ll need that on a hat, please. I intend to be taken seriously when I’m not, as you say, breaking things.”
“They are recreational facilities,” Custodian said. “The Creators were fond of the view as well.”
They carried on, leaving the lounges and passing through a series of green compartments, the walls festooned with tray systems for growing plant life. Aside from a few desiccated grey stalks, there was little evidence that the room had once been thriving with life. Dash broke one off with a puff of dust and studied it.
“Held up pretty good for two hundred thousand years.”
“The Forge was held in a state of suspended animation during that time,” Custodian said.
“Life is tenacious,” Dash replied, dropping the stalk back into the…not soil, he saw, but some other sort of granular medium, like pulverized crystal.
“This does raise a point, though,” Viktor said. “The Unseen wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of including a whole, separate category of botanical systems on this station if it wasn’t important.”
“Passage has some big, community gardens,” Amy said. “I tried my hand at growing tomatoes once. They all died.”
“Tomatoes probably don’t like being smeared in hatch grease,” Viktor said, flashing her a teasing grin.
Amy put on a theatrical scowl. “You may have noticed that I’ve cleaned myself up since I’ve been hanging out with you guys, thank you very much.”
“Anyway,” Leira cut in, heading off another round of banter, “Viktor’s point still stands. The Unseen intended for there to be plant life cultivated on this station. Custodian, how much of the environment in this place is dependent on these botanicals?”
“For you—the Messenger, and his companions, the system does not require living augmentation to support life in a comfortable fashion. When the Forge was fully crewed, however, botanical systems made significant contributions to air and water quality, as well as quality of life.”
“Something to keep in mind, then,” Leira said.
“Maybe once the war’s over, we can think about making life better instead of mere survival,” Dash said. “In the meantime, I think weapons and scanners and the like are a lot more important.”
“Indeed, that is true, Messenger,” Custodian said. “That is why your collection of Dark Metal was so important. And, to that end, I would suggest that you now make your way to the indicated part of the Forge.”
A luminescent, holographic image of the Forge appeared in midair, showing their current location, and then a path that would take them to another part of the station a couple of sub-levels above it. They set off, but Dash didn’t want to lose the train of thought he’d started.
“Okay, Custodian, about this Dark Metal. Sentinel described it to me once when we were fighting the Harbinger. Our energy weapons apparently couldn’t do much to it because it was so resistant. But…what is it? Where does it come from? And what do we need it for?”
“The specific nature of Dark Metal is not entirely understood, not even by the Creators. It was originally acquired, or at least discovered, by the Golden. The Creators subsequently obtained it and were able to perfect a refining process. Unfortunately, we possess none of the materials required to do so.”
“Which means we’re stuck trying to gather it,” Conover said.
“Indeed. It is clearly not a natural substance, but it is used in the construction of many components used in the Creators’ technology, including the Archetype. That is why it was so important for the Messenger to gather the debris from the Golden probe.”
“Okay, so it looks like we’ll have to go hunting for this stuff if we can’t find a way of making it here,” Dash said. “Still, the question is, what sort of tech needs it?”
“It i
s crucial for the manufacture and operation of most weapon systems, stealth functions, power generation and distribution, and various types of containment systems.”
“In other words, everything that really matters,” said Dash.
They reached the end of the green zone. Ahead, the corridor was grey. As they passed the last compartment before the transition, Conover stopped and peered inside. Like the lounge, this one had one wall that was essentially transparent, looking out at the sweeping vista of the galactic core. Stars burned in the furious deep, more than could be counted.
“I wonder why the Unseen put in so many windows. You’d think they’d be a structural liability,” Conover asked.
“For us, maybe,” Viktor said. “For the Unseen, probably not so much.”
“Maybe they just liked looking out at the stars,” Amy suggested.
But Leira shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s because they wanted to keep reminding themselves that the Golden are out there, somewhere, waiting.”
They moved on, but Dash lingered a moment, looking not at the stars, but the darkness between them.
He could feel them out there, like a weighted echo—the Golden weren’t visible, not really, but he knew they were there. He could sense their malevolence, like spirits in the void, and with every implacable weapon they put into space, their mission became clearer.
Dash felt the enormity of the Forge around him, and knew this was his home—the heart of a vast battlefield where his decisions would shape whether humanity lived or died.
He stared at the dark again; that place where no stars shone, and then he drew himself up, squaring to face what came.
Unlike the Golden’s other enemies, Dash would not cower.
He would wait.
5
As they followed the directions they’d been given, heading deeper into this grey-colored part of the station—which denoted some combination of storage, security and fabrication—Custodian gave an update on the distant, deep-scanned signal.
“I have been processing the incoming data and subjecting it to various transformations and filters in an attempt to improve resolution. I have also employed—”
“Thank you, but we’re pressed for time,” Dash said, interrupting. “I’m sure there are lots of people that would love to hear about how you massaged the data you’re collecting. Right now, we need results.”
“Your use of the term massaged is a cause for concern. In your own databases, that term is used to describe data that has been distorted or misrepresented. That is not the case here.”
“What? No, I didn’t mean you’d screwed around with the data.” Dash glanced at Leira. “We’re going to regret giving these AIs access to the Slipwing’s database, you know,” he muttered. “They might end up knowing too much about us.” He turned his attention back to Custodian. “Can we just get the bottom line? By which I mean, what you’ve learned.”
“I have been able to gain greater clarity on the specific location of the signal’s source. I can also report that it is emanating from a source not only considerably larger than I had first concluded, but also much larger than would be expected.”
“Tell me,” Dash said, eager for the information.
“There is a reason this facility is known as the Forge. As I have said previously, it is more than just a weapons platform and crew quarters. It is more than just a station intended to control a volume of space. Above all else, this facility is intended to build the weapons needed to defeat the Golden and bring about galactic stability. To that end, there is something I need to show you. Please continue to follow my directions.”
Their impromptu tour continued. By now, Dash was, to put it simply, in awe. He’d reached the point of saturation; the sheer enormity of the Forge and its intricate, seamless fit of so many levels, corridors, compartments, and bays, had flooded his brain with enough wonder that seeing more of it just left him staring blankly. Glancing at the faces of his companions, he suspected they’d reached much the same point. Kai and the monks still seemed to be able to gape in amazement, but the rest of them? Not so much. Even Conover, as big an enthusiast for all things scientific and technological as he was, had a vaguely stunned look stuck on his face.
About fifteen minutes after leaving the last green zone—including walking, and transit in another, utterly silent elevator that seemed to move not just vertically, but also horizontally and even diagonally, they reached yet another corridor.
Dash thought about the hab area. The memory of those ranks of empty beds just wouldn’t leave him. He could imagine himself sprawling in one of them, taking up the whole thing, not having to worry about jamming himself into cramped nook aboard the Slipwing, or trying to get comfortable on a hard patch of deck somewhere near the engine room. He’d resolved to tell Custodian that they needed to take a break from this. They’d been at it for several hours and weren’t just overwhelmed; they were also tired, footsore, and hungry. He was even opening his mouth to say as much, but Custodian beat him to it.
“Please proceed to the door at the end of this corridor.”
Dash glanced at his companions then said, “Custodian, look. We’ve been at this for a long while now.”
“I realize that you must accommodate your various biological needs, including rest. However, it will be useful for you to be aware of what I am going to show you. It will also help set the context for a decision regarding the distant signal.”
Leira took a deep breath and exhaled through her nose in contemplation. “We’re here now, so we might as well see this big reveal.”
They walked to the end of the corridor. A much larger door than any of the others they’d encountered slid aside as they approached, opening the way to another cavernous compartment. The bulkhead through which the portal passed was, Dash noted, much thicker than any others he’d seen in the Forge—at last two meters, making it more of a short tunnel than just a doorway.
They walked a few paces inside then stopped, suddenly, and all at once.
For a while, they just stared.
No, gaped.
Dash was wrong. It turned out he still did have some room for wonder.
“The heart of the Forge,” Custodian said, his voice echoing through the vast, rambling space.
“I guess this is the fabrication center.” Amy’s voice was uncharacteristically subdued.
Huge machines, ranks upon ranks of them, stretched into a far-off perspective. Other machines sprouting long, jointed arms hung from a complex web of overhead rails, apparently so they could traverse about the place. Dominating all of it was a towering, tapered cylinder rising to the ceiling, at least thirty meters overhead. A multitude of pipes and conduits extended from this central cylinder to all of the other machines. It was both fantastically chaotic and intricate, but it carried a sense of orderly purpose. Massive and chunky, to the point of being ponderous, it still somehow seemed delicate, even fragile in its vast complexity.
Dash took a few steps then turned a circle, taking all of it in without really taking any of it in. “This is what they could do.”
Viktor nodded slowly, his eyes flickering hungrily over the tableau. “They were almost gods, I think.” He shook himself, adding, “If a god could build with metal.”
Conover had wandered to the nearest of the machines. It loomed over him, almost three times his height. He brushed a hand along a part of it suspended below the bulk of the contraption, a flat slab half a meter thick and a good three meters square.
“This looks like a mold,” he said. “It looks like it’s meant to be raised.” He peered above into the underside of the machine, then pointed up. “Yeah. Raised and pressed up against there, which seems to be the other half of the mold.”
Dash finally gave up trying to find words and just whistled his appreciation of the place. The others moved to join Conover, studying the mold and muttering in low tones, as though afraid that speaking too loudly would somehow desecrate the place.
> And speaking of desecration and reverence and all such similar stuff, Dash turned to look back at Kai and the monks. He was surprised to find them looking no more enthralled than they had been by anything else they’d seen on the Forge.
“You don’t seem all that impressed,” Dash said, bemused by their subdued reaction.
“Oh, quite the contrary,” Kai replied. “Better to say that we are equally amazed by all of the majestic works of the Unseen. This is just another wonder among many.”
Dash nodded, then turned as Viktor spoke.
“Custodian, this is. . .a forge?”
“In a sense, yes,” Custodian replied, “but not as you understand it. The Archetypes are not merely weapons. They’re integrated systems that ordinarily require years to build, although grow is perhaps a better term. As your knowledge of Unseen technological processes expands, you’ll be able to grasp more of what happens here, but suffice it to say that Dark Metal is not merely a material. It has a memory, and that memory can be shaped—with enormous power and time—to create something far more lethal than a simple weapon. The Unseen wanted to go beyond even that, creating weapons systems that could break down spacetime itself, at least in a localized fashion.”
“Wait. Do you mean like a black hole?” Amy asked, giving a nervous laugh as she did. Dash thought she was hoping the Custodian would say no, of course not.
“I mean exactly that,” is what Custodian replied, though. “It would be mobile, however, and under the control of an Archetype command unit.”
“That’s basically the power of creation,” Leira said, her voice low and taut with disbelief.
“And destruction,” Custodian said. “But that is a long way off in terms of material and power. To date, the Creators have only managed to harness a singularity, a black hole, to act as a power source. The Archetype is a prime example.”