by J. N. Chaney
“We have a plan for that, too.” A schematic appeared on the heads-up. Dash just stared at it for a moment.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he finally said.
“We do not kid,” Tybalt said.
Dash smiled. “No, I don’t suppose you do. Leira, what do you think of this?”
“I think it’s insane.”
“You want to give it a try, don’t you?”
“Damned right I do.”
Dash chuckled. “Okay. It’s worth a shot. All ahead full. But carefully.”
Dash shook his head. “Holy crap. I can’t believe this is working.”
“I do not know why you are surprised, Messenger,” Tybalt said. “Sentinel and I had every confidence in our proposal.”
“Sentinel, that true?”
“Of course,” she replied, but Dash caught a hint of hesitation that made him smile.
He and Leira hugged—actually hugged—the Bright ship with their mechs, the Archetype clinging to its port side, the Swift to starboard. With their massive hands firmly anchored into the ship’s structure, they’d become its engines, the mechs’ drives more than powerful enough to maneuver it. Now, the makeshift ship-mech hybrid trailed along just a hundred meters beneath the Herald, all of them smoothly translating through unSpace in sync, their drives slaved to Benzel’s ship. Dash could only try to imagine the vast computational power being used to keep the whole arrangement stable during translation. There was no way any conventional ship would have been able to do it.
It left him without much to do.
“Hey, Sentinel, you guys all seem to have this under control, so you really don’t need me for the next few hours, do you?”
“As long as we encounter no difficulties, we do not. Why, do you intend to go somewhere?”
Dash chuckled. “Yeah, I do. But I need you to shut down whatever it is in the Meld that keeps me awake.”
“Ah. Done.”
“Wake me up if you need me, okay?”
“I will.”
Dash had always wondered if he’d be able to sleep in this damned cradle.
It turned out he could, just fine.
13
Dash was sorry when Sentinel finally woke him just in time for them to drop out of unSpace near the Forge. The cradle turned out to be weirdly comfortable, and now he found himself considering spending the odd rest period snoozing in its grip.
More to the point, though, it meant that he arrived at the Forge relatively well rested. As Custodian set about dismantling the Bright ship for its raw materials and usable components, Dash dismounted the Archetype and made his way directly to the medical bay, where the Gentle Friends had taken their prisoner. He found Kai, Viktor, and Harolyn already there.
“Ugly son of a bitch,” Harolyn said as he joined them beside the gurney, to which the Bright had been thoroughly strapped.
Dash nodded. “Yeah, and they’re even uglier when they’re awake.”
The Bright looked like he—Custodian had confirmed it was a he, although that was apparently based solely on genetics, not on any recognizable physical characteristics—was just asleep. In fact, Custodian had administered sedatives and confirmed that, based on the Bright’s brainwave activity, he was experiencing something similar to REM sleep. But there were several more readings, all confirming electrical and computational activity in many of his internal…components seemed to fit better than organs, given what they’d found in their previous dissection of one of these things. They didn’t know enough about the beings to know if asleep actually meant unaware, so Custodian had already cautioned them to assume that whatever they said might be overheard.
“So aside from ugly, what’s his status?” Dash said.
“He is stable,” Custodian said. “I have administered sedatives, as already noted, as well as fluids. There has been no need to undertake any other treatments because any injuries the Bright suffered during his capture have already been self-repaired.”
“Well that’s efficient,” Dash said. “He’s fully healed, and I still haven’t even showered since the fight.”
Harolyn gave Dash a sidelong look. “Tell me about it.”
Dash shot her a good-natured glare, but Kai spoke up. He’d been studying the Bright closely. “I am convinced that this is one of the Verity.”
“How can you be sure?” Dash asked. “They fled your Order over a century ago, so it’s not like you’d know any of them or recognize them.”
Kai looked at Dash. “Nonetheless, I am convinced of it. This is exactly the sort of apotheosis, elevation to a higher, more ordered and logical state of being, that they sought.” He shrugged. “You aren’t the only one who has feelings about things, Dash.”
“Fair enough. Who am I to argue with that, right?” He looked back at the Bright, who apparently was also a Verity. “So how long until he wakes up?”
“I could awaken him at any time,” Custodian replied. “As I said, physically he is now essentially sound. The sedatives are keeping the appropriate parts of his nervous system suppressed, so terminating their use will allow him to regain consciousness.”
“Okay. Give us five minutes then wake him up.” Dash gestured for the others to follow him out of the medical bay.
“I’d like you guys to lead the interrogation when he wakes up,” Dash said.
Viktor looked at Kai, then Harolyn, then Dash. “So that’s why you asked us to meet you here. But why us?”
“Because I’ve got something in mind,” Dash said. “I’ll warn you right now, though, it’s not going to be pretty.”
Dash stopped a few corridors away from the medical bay, Leira at his side. She carried an IV bag filled with a lurid, blue-green fluid. He reached for his comm, but Leira stopped him.
“Dash, are you really sure about this?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“This is pretty extreme.”
“Every aspect of this war is extreme.” He tapped his comm. “Kai, it’s Dash. How’s it going?”
“Our guest is proving to be most uncooperative, unfortunately. We haven’t been able to get him to answer any of our questions.”
Dash set his mouth into a grim line. “Fine. We’re on our way, then.”
“Dash,” Kai began. “I really must urge—”
“Dash out.” He glanced at Leira, then resumed his way to the medical bay.
They found the others clustered around the Verity, whose dark, crystalline eyes regarded them all with a cold, inhuman contempt that actually made Dash wince a little. But he ignored their prisoner and just looked at the others.
“So nothing? Nothing at all?”
“We’ve tried being friendly, persuasive, even a little menacing,” Harolyn said. “Nothing.”
Viktor shrugged. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the monitors. Nothing to even hint he’s under any sort of stress.”
Kai sighed. “I hate to admit it, but I believe we’ve done all we can.” He narrowed his eyes at Dash. “I just think we need more time.”
“We don’t have more time.”
“He was once human,” Kai said. “I believe we can reach that—”
“There’s nothing human about this thing,” Dash snapped, then turned to Leira and held out a hand.
She looked down at the IV bag, then back up at Dash. “I’m really uncomfortable about this, Dash.”
“Yeah, so am I. But all sentient life, remember?”
She handed over the IV bag. Dash moved to the side of the gurney, unplugged an IV bag already hooked up, and lifted the bag containing the blue-green fluid. As he did, Conover entered, carrying an instrument. He moved in beside Dash.
“I just wanted to take a reading of his—”
Dash put a hand on Conover’s chest and shoved him back, hard.
“Get back, dammit. If this spills—just get back.” He gave Conover a hard look. “You don’t want to be here, anyway. Believe me.”
As Conover faded back, gaping, Dash turned to Leira. “Do you
think he can understand me?”
She shrugged. “We don’t even know if he can speak. He might just be—”
“Get that poison away from me, you filthy breeder,” the Verity said. His voice, flat and mechanical, nonetheless managed to ring with arrogant disdain.
They’d all widened their eyes when the Verity spoke. Dash made a huh sound. “Well, well, he can talk. I guess that’s some progress.”
“Of course I speak, you fool. I’m an officer of the only sentient species in this room.” The Verity looked at the vivid IV bag in Dash’s hand. “Your primitive toxin might end this particular iteration of me, but that is of no consequence. My people will find me and reintegrate this frame. You’ll be frozen dust by then, of course. But that is of no consequence, either.”
Finished speaking, the Verity closed his eyes.
Dash shrugged. “Well, then there’s no harm in doing this, right? Custodian, how much of this stuff will cook his nerves? Three mils, or five? He’s small, I mean, can’t be but a hundred, hundred twenty kilos.”
“Five mils will destroy all nerve pathways, rendering them incapable of functioning.”
“Five mils, huh?”
“Dash,” Leira said. “You don’t have to do this.”
He spun on her. “Remember when you tore open that ship?” He jerked a thumb at the Verity. “Their ship? Remember what spilled out into space?”
She said nothing.
“Dash,” Harolyn said. “Five mils—that’s a little over the top, don’t you think? I mean, there’s pain and then—”
“No,” Leira said, her voice suddenly as cold and empty as hard vacuum. “Dash is right. I can’t ever forget those…people. What these monsters had done to them.” She looked at Dash. “You’re right. Do it. We don’t need him. Besides, we can use what’s left of him afterward, maybe figure out how they work. And how to stop them, for good.”
Dash hooked up the IV bag and grabbed the valve. “Five mils it is.” He thumbed open the valve. Drops of the bright liquid dripped into the reservoir. A second valve kept them from finishing their journey into the Verity’s arm.
“I can’t watch this,” Conover said, turning and leaving.
“Spare me your theatrics,” the Verity hissed, opening his eyes.
Dash glanced at the monitor over the gurney. “Custodian, show me that spot we talked about before—yeah, right there.”
Dash pulled a multi-tool out of his pocket and pried at a small panel on the Verity’s lower leg, about halfway between foot and knee. It opened to reveal several tubes converging into a single valve assembly. “Yeah, there we go.” He looked at Leira. “I was just thinking. Maybe we could inject here, instead. Might preserve more of the, you know, the top of him, where all the good stuff is. Viktor, you could use some more parts from one of these assholes, right?”
Viktor gave an uncomfortable look. “I suppose I could, yes.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We might learn more about them from one that’s alive than the pieces of that dead one we have in storage.”
Kai gave him a look. “So you’re going to go along with this, too?”
“Leira told me all about what she saw when that Bright ship vented into space.” He gave a slow nod. “Like Dash said, we’re talking about all sentient life here, Kai.”
“You’re the one who calls them the Enemy of All Life,” Leira said.
Kai just sighed and looked back at the Verity, who glanced at the green fluid in the tube.
“I am not afraid of any of this, or any of you,” the Verity snapped. “You are as animals to me, nothing more. If you had any wits about you, you would embrace the elevation that is—”
“Yeah, screw this,” Dash said. “I can’t be bothered to wait.”
He opened the second valve, letting the greenish fluid flow into the Verity’s arm.
“All of you are already dead,” the Verity said. “You just don’t realize it yet.” Dash noted that the Verity’s words came a little more quickly now. He watched as the first of the green fluid entered the needle buried in the pale, waxy skin of his arm. “You will be found and—”
He stopped speaking, his eyes going wide. “What is that sensation?” the Verity said, then he stiffened, pulling against the straps holding him down. His lips pulled back and he drew in a hissing breath as more of the fluid entered him.
“It’s just the beginning,” Dash said. “But we have plenty of time. Well, you don’t, but we do.”
“Unless you would like to…talk,” Leira said.
“Talking is good,” Harolyn said.
“Very good,” Kai added.
The Verity’s face softened. In a quiet voice, he said, “Saint. Kizdin.”
“What’s that?” Dash asked.
“My ship. And my name,” the Verity said.
“Can I pull this line from you, or should I leave it in?” Dash asked.
“I will speak.”
Dash pinched the IV with his thumb and forefinger but left it in the Verity’s arm. “Fine. You speak, and I’ll take the line out completely. And if you don’t? Well, I just let go of this tube and walk away.”
“It will not do you any good,” Kizdin said. “Your defeat is—”
“Inevitable, yeah, yeah,” Dash cut in, waving a hand. “Look, when you said you would speak, if you just meant a bunch of bullshit about how we’re all doomed, blah, blah, etcetera, then—”
He let go of the IV line, let another slug of the greenish fluid pass through, then pinched it again.
Kizdin sank back onto the gurney. “It does not matter what you know. Therefore, ask your questions.”
Dash looked at Kai, who nodded.
“You are one of the Verity?” the monk asked.
“I am. And you must be an apostate, one of the heretics who chose not to follow the truth.”
“It’s funny, but we say much the same things about you,” Kai said. “Isn’t it interesting how much these things depend on your point of view?”
“Is that one of your questions? Is that your purpose, to request philosophical insights from me? If so, then you should simply embrace elevation, for then you will—”
“Oh, for—” Dash snapped, leaning in. “Look, if you’re going to play the holier-than-thou asshole here and start lecturing us, I won’t bother with this IV and we’ll just space you, got it? I had a bellyful of that from Nathis and Clan Shirna, who, incidentally, were no more successful than you guys have been at helping out the Golden.”
“Good help is hard to find,” Harolyn said.
Kizdin said nothing.
“So what is your purpose for taking all of the humans you have?” Kai asked.
The Verity just gave Kai a stare. “You already know.”
“I would like to hear you say it.”
“Very well. Our continued lives depend on being able to replenish bodies with certain components that can only be obtained from living humans.”
“Nervous system tissue,” Kai said.
“Yes, as you have no doubt barbarically determined from your slaughter of my brethren.”
“Not just slaughter,” Dash said. “Dissection, too.”
Kizdin shot Dash a venomous look. Dash smiled back.
“Harvesting what you need from those people is not the only reason you attack and capture them, though, is it?” Kai asked.
Kizdin shrugged as much as his restraints allowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, please,” Kai said with a humorless laugh. “You could be far more surreptitious about this. You specifically intend to inject elements of fear and horror into your vile actions as a means of showing domination.”
“The strong have always dominated the weak.”
“For all of their misguided beliefs, the Verity who left us over a century ago would never have believed such a thing,” Kai shot back. “They chose to wrongly focus on order and logic, at the expense of a more human view, yes. But they were not cruel or domineering. You were corrupted by t
he Bright.”
“They showed us the truth,” Saint Kizdin said, pushing against his restraints again. “They showed us how the universe is truly meant to work. The laws of physics and chemistry and mathematics are that truth. The universe is perfect—or would be, but for one tragic flaw.”
“Let me guess,” Viktor said. “Us. You’re talking about us.”
“Yes! Sentient, biological life is an imperfection! It is random, chaotic, unpredictable. It disrupts the order that would otherwise be inherent in the universe. The Bright found us and elevated us, joining us to their cause. Now, we are their vanguard. We understand you primitive beings, having once been such ourselves.” Kizdin gave a thin, cold smile. “We know you better than you know yourselves.”
“Yeah, I doubt that,” Harolyn said. “You might have, but I think you probably lost that right along with the rest of your humanity.”
“Your humanity is vastly overrated,” the Verity said, sinking back. “Soon, it will be nothing more than a minor footnote in the great story of the universe—and then, eventually forgotten. Entirely.”
“You know, for all of your bluster about us, you sure are cowardly in how you go about this,” Dash said. “I think you’re afraid of us.”
Kizdin sniffed. “Hardly. We have nothing to fear from you.”
“Then why don’t you just come and attack us?” Leira asked. “You know, launch an all-out war, instead of skulking around the way you do.”
“Oh, that day will come. In the meantime, though, it is sufficient to simply waylay your ships and pull them out of their superluminal state. They are then defenseless against us.” He smiled again. “Why would we be afraid of such a—” His smile hardened another notch. “I cannot even use the term enemy, because that implies you represent a threat. You do not.”
“Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that,” Dash said. “How do you yank ships out of unSpace, anyway?”
Kizdin offered another slight shrug. “The means was given to us by the Golden. I am inclined to withhold such information simply because I can.”
“Eh, I was just curious if it was as good as our own tech for doing that. Custodian, how is that coming, by the way? Those unSpace scramblers we discussed?”