The Farpool_Exodus

by Philip Bosshardt

  Loptoheen disappeared below the water for a moment, consulted with Yakto, who produced another echopod. Loptoheen surfaced, handed the device to Hu.

  “Explains for you…m’jeete come from far seas—”

  Hu took the pod and activated it, as Loptoheen had shown him. Voices tumbled out, barely discernible, now translated into Mandarin Chinese, a decent enough translation, the Admiral thought. Dr. Li and Dr. Chu gathered closer to listen….

  “First off, the Coethi are thought to be a race of sentient semi-robotic aliens whose main weapon against our forces is something we Umans called a starball. It is directed against the sun or star of a targeted Uman planetary system. The only known defense is our Time Twister. When a starball enters or is pulled into the twist field of a Twister, it is flung out of local space-time into the farthest reaches of the Universe.

  Umans and Coethi are contending for influence and territory in a region of the Milky Way known as the Galactic Halo….”

  The three Chinese listened with rapt attention to the echopod that Tulcheah had surreptitiously made of Chase’s own recording. She had given it to Lektereenah before the Metah had departed Keenomsh’pont. Tulcheah had always found it laughably easy to distract Chase…he had learned well the Seomish ideas of love and life, especially the love part.

  Hu’s eyes widened. “These creatures came from another world, from another part of our galaxy…is that what I’m hearing here?”

  Li agreed. “It seems to be, Admiral. The Sea People think the m’jeete…the Coethi…came through the gateway when they all emigrated here from their home world. Imagine that…a race of sentient nanobots…a swarm light-years across.”

  “And the device…it manipulates time…did we hear that correctly?” asked Dr. Chu. She brushed back some bangs from her forehead. “Maybe it’s the translation—”

  Loptoheen understood some of what they were saying. “Shhkeeeah…truth believe we…the m’jeete roam as we do…through the megamah, through time.”

  Dr. Li slammed a fist on the railing. “Just imagine it, Admiral! Listen to what they’re saying… that device they’re building on the seabed could be a time machine. Time manipulator…shijian caoxong qi…a time travel device. Such a thing should be theoretically impossible…but Hawking and others have…I can’t believe it.” Li bubbled like a child at New Year’s.

  “We have to learn more about this,” added Chu, more soberly. “For science, for the Academy—”

  “For the Party…and for China,” said Hu, carefully. “This must be kept close, for now. Only a few should know. If this recording is right, the Sea People, at least some of them, know a lot about these little robots. Perhaps we can learn much.”

  Loptoheen squeaked loudly, excitedly. “Shkreeah…Omtorish work with other Tailless, use m’jeete to dominate all.”

  Hu seemed puzzled, but after a few more exchanges with Loptoheen and Lektereenah, nodded. “He’s saying there are other Sea Peoples, other factions, that want to use these creatures and their machine to control all Sea Peoples. We can do the same…don’t you see? With this technology and what we can learn from the Sea People, and these tiny robots, China would be first among all nations. Think of the possibilities: time travel to other places and times….”

  Dr. Li was still skeptical. “Such should not be possible…we’re talking shiguang jiqi…time traveling ships? Preposterous.” He shook his head firmly, looked at Chu, who was less skeptical and openly curious. “This isn’t within the bounds of known physics, is it, Dr. Chu? I’m just a marine biologist.”

  Chu shrugged. “We speak of many universes, multi-verses, membranes of spacetime…who knows what’s possible? Look at what these tiny robots are already doing to the local climates and seas.”

  Hu was enamored of fantastic possibilities, and great power in the storied halls of Beijing. He could easily envision his own career trajectory accelerating like a rocket, all the way to the top. “If this is true, we could travel back to Ming-dynasty China, reverse centuries of stagnation and humiliation, send Admiral Zheng He on even more expeditions, even meet the Great Seafarer himself.”

  Li was still dubious. “Perhaps we should temper our fantasies a bit. Learn more about this race of tiny robots. These people seem to want to cooperate…the research possibilities are endless.”

  The Ponkti and the Chinese continued to talk, as well as they could and additional ideas were discussed and debated. In the end, it was agreed that Loptoheen would help the Chinese setup a continuing series of expeditions to the main seabed reservoir of the m’jeete, to study the robots and their time machine, if it was such a thing. For their part, the Chinese would help the Ponkti complete their new settlement at Ponkel’te and offer no more resistance to the existence of the Ponkti in their Nan Zhongguo hai…the South China Sea. Indeed the Chinese would furnish proper building materials and tools for the Ponkti to make their new home and would provide military escort and protection when Lektereenah decided the day of the great move would come.

  Admiral Hu managed to produce some rice wine from a nearby commissary and offered a toast.

  “To our new friends...a long and prosperous and mutually beneficial relationship, cordial relations and lasting amity between our peoples. Ponkti and Chinese both know what it means to be lap dogs to other peoples. But the humiliations have ended and together, we will be stronger than all of our enemies combined.”

  Loptoheen and Lektereenah listened intently to the translation of the Chinese words, and wondered what it all meant. They said good-byes and re-entered the kip’t, which Loptoheen expertly lifted away from the platform and piloted gingerly down the submerged tunnel into the open waters of Longpo Bay.

  When they had found deep waters and were on course for Ponkel’te, Lektereenah spoke quietly.

  “I don’t trust any Tailless, Loptoheen. Not for a moment. You can’t pulse them…they’re opaque to us.”

  “Mutual self-interest…that’s the best foundation for an alliance, for any kel’tet,” Loptoheen said. ”In tuk, you can’t strike a winning blow unless you are balanced, aligned, in flow with the currents. What I fear, Affectionate Metah, is that the Tailless are not our real enemy. The m’jeete…that is our adversary. Even the Tailless of our time, the Umans Chase called them, feared the m’jeete. I hope we have not unleashed another great wave upon ourselves…ak’loosh comes when Shooki decides.”

  Lektereenah spat. “Kah, Loptoheen you’re an old, superstitious man. Shooki is for frightening the midlings and the children and the gullible. We make our own waves. It is as the Tailless commander said: a chance to be stronger than the Omtorish, strongest among all kels. A chance to rule the seas here as we never could on Seome. If it takes a great wave to bring this about, then so be it.”

  UNIFORCE Headquarters

  The Quartier General, Montparnasse

  Paris

  September 5, 2115

  0800 hours

  General Wolfus Linx had been UNSAC—United Nations Security Affairs Commissioner—for nearly two years now and in that time, he had faced down many threats across the multiple theaters and conflict zones of the world, but never in that time had he encountered anything quite like this.

  Linx was a short, heavy-set man with piercing blue eyes and a shiny bald head. His moustache looked like something that had escaped from the Black Forest. He had the rigid bearing and countenance of a Prussian field marshal, which a distant ancestor had once been.

  Now, however, he could only bring a weary scowl to the news he had been presented and the decisions he was about to make. Linx’s office was on the sixtieth floor of the Quartier General. If not for the hordes of jetcabs flitting by the picture windows outside, the UNIFORCE Director could have enjoyed a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower. As it was, his office was filled with all manner of ghosts, wraiths and avatars drifting about, waiting for the meeting to begin.

  Linx checked the time. “The purpose of this meeting,” he intoned, “is to ascertain what is goi
ng on in the southwest Pacific and determine whether UNIFORCE intervention is warranted. Are we all here now?”

  A chorus of ayes and yes’s came back. Hovering nearest to Linx’s desk was the avatar of Rene Camois, director of the UN’s BioShield program. Opposite the desk, in one corner of the spacious suite, a small throng of avatars chatted among themselves…the UNISEA Sea Council. Dr. Satsuyama spoke for them.

  “We’re ready, General.”

  Pipe and cigar smokers all, Linx noted sourly. One of the few advantages of using avatars.

  “Very well. Mr. Camois, give us the raw data.”

  Disembodied data blocks drifted about the room, winking on and off as the BioShield director highlighted them.

  “You all know about the disturbances in the South China Sea in recent weeks. Bioshield has determined that a large and growing reservoir or source of illegal nanobotic activity has developed at these coordinates—” he highlighted with floating arrows a small map of the area, “—off the Reed Banks. The source of the disturbance is not presently known…what you’re looking at is real-time signals, sonar and video surveillance of the disturbance zone. What is not in question is that the size, spread, concentration and operation of such a large formation of nanoscale robotic elements is in violation of UN resolution 885 and pertinent containment laws and regulations.”

  “It’s the Sea People,” said one of the Sea Council delegates. “Has to be…we know they’re building a base in that area.”

  “Which violates our territorial waters,” added Cao Zhilin, the Chinese delegate to the Sea Council. Cao was a thin woman with severe black hair, cut way too short for Linx’s taste. She chain-smoked nervously, aware that the Foreign Ministry in Beijing had charged her with diverting any UNIFORCE operations from the Nan Zhongguo hai at all costs.

  Satsuyama was at pains to keep the Sea Council focused on the matter at hand. “Dr. Camois, what about environmental disturbances in the area. We’ve all seen the news about climate irregularities.”

  “Indeed,” said Camois, “Atmospheric disturbances have been detected by BioShield drone and satellite sensors from Bangladesh all the way to the Philippines. There seems to be a zone of toxic air, with concomitant loss of marine and land wildlife, centered on the Reed Banks and spreading outward in a roughly concentric advance from that point. The rate of advance of this disturbance is itself quite disturbing…on the order of tens of kilometers every day. It’s BioShield’s determination that these climatic variations---substantial increases in CO2 levels, alterations in chemical makeup of the air, species die-offs in unprecedented numbers in the Central Highlands of Vietnam and along the Mekong River and its tributaries—these variations are a direct result of the increased nanobotic activity levels. We’ve asked UNIFORCE to examine our data and to send enforcement teams into the region to confront this source and stop it.”

  Satsuyama had a question. “Assuming the source of these disturbances is the nanobotic eruption at Reed Banks…I think the data are inconclusive on this, but assuming for the sake of argument, General, what would UNIFORCE do next?”

  Linx fiddled with his moustache. “Normal procedure is to form a Detachment Alpha from units of Quantum Corps. We would then ingress into the area and perform tactical recon of the engagement zone. If what Dr. Camois says is true, our ANAD units would engage the source with counter-nano and all necessary measures to control and contain the offenders. We have more than enough force to do this…High-Freq radio weapons, magpulsers, beam weapons, every Alpha Detachment brings a pretty decisive arsenal to the table. I’m confident we can stop this source with what we have.”

  Cao, the Chinese delegate, spoke up. Her avatar floated over to Linx’s desk. “China is opposed to UNIFORCE intervention, at least at the Reed Banks. The Nan Zhongguo hai is sovereign territory of the People’s Republic. We strenuously oppose any interference from outside forces in our waters.”

  The Russian Sea Council delegate, a white-haired diplomat named Kerensky, snorted. “Perhaps it’s China that is the source of all this nonsense, eh? With their uncontrolled experiments in molecular high-speed nano? Military-grade nano is forbidden…we have containment laws and regulations to stop this nonsense. What is it my Chinese friends are hiding?”

  Cao flushed. “My country has an inherent right to self---”

  Linx cut them off. “That’s enough, you two. My office is not a kindergarten playground. Dr. Camois, anything else?”

  Camois’ avatar checked with someone behind him and then returned to face the others. “BioShield confirms that atmospheric perturbations have been detected throughout the area we’re talking about, General. Satellite and aerial ‘bot inspection have characterized the phenomena as a ‘toxic cloud’ spreading outward from Reed Banks and Apo Island in the western Philippines, altering the composition of the atmosphere, breaking down ozone and other molecules. “So far, it’s said to be a relatively small-scale event, but whatever it is, it’s resistant to nanobotic intervention to this point. BioShield has deployed enforcement nano into the area with no effect. Frankly, we need UNIFORCE’s bigger guns.”

  “Director,” asked Satsuyama, “are we dealing with a natural outbreak or some kind of rogue ‘bots somebody let loose?”

  “That’s unknown at this time, Dr. Satsuyama. Perhaps, my deputy Emmanuel Neckar, has something to add.”

  Camois’ assistant was a precise, almost effeminate bureaucrat. “UN BioShield has been receiving reports for several days now, actually reports, data, even imagery from multiple locations around the world. We’re getting reports of similar atmospheric disturbances, in places like Tibet, the south Pacific, the Antarctic, the Congo basin in central Africa.”

  “What kind of disturbances?” Linx asked.

  “Similar to what’s being reported here,” Camois consulted some background material, squirted it off the satellite to Paris. The master display showed a map of the world, with the areas mentioned highlighted. “Constituent gas concentrations all mixed up, oxygen and ozone levels dropping, carbon dioxide levels rising, pressure fluctuations…BioShield is reporting nanobotic activity in or near all spots, so we think that’s the cause. Who or what’s behind it—“ Camois looked up and shrugged, visibly frustrated even as an avatar. “The Director General’s meeting with the Secretary-General this evening, 1900 hours our time.”

  Linx studied the displays, trying to make sense of it all. “There’s no obvious pattern. What makes all these places so special?”

  “Unknown, General,” said Camois. “We running routines now to try and match a pattern, possibly predict any further outbreaks. So far, the public’s unaware of the disturbances, except in the affected areas…the media haven’t sniffed this one out yet, at least not in detail. There have been speculative reports on Solnet, so they know something’s up. But the problem seems to be growing.”

  “It must be the Sea People,” Kerensky suggested, hoping someone had evidence to the prove the point he couldn’t make.

  “A distinct possibility,” Camois agreed. “General, we need to raise the alert level here. The Commissioner will undoubtedly make the same request formally.”

  Linx was reluctant to admit there was something that UNIFORCE couldn’t handle, especially when a mandated mission like atmospheric patrol was involved, but he agreed.

  “It would be best,” he admitted. “I’m thinking we may need to go beyond BioShield and send in a special ops team…one of my ANAD units. I’m not sure BioShield can handle this.”

  Camois took that grimly. “Very well. I’ll recommend to the Director General that we go to UNICON Plus. General, with your permission, I’d like to play a vid segment we recorded from investigations made by the Philippine Ministry of Health a few days ago. One of their inspectors, a Doctor Del Compo, took a team to Apo Island and nearly died when they encountered these effects. He’s online now.”

  Linx nodded grimly. “Proceed, Dr. Camois.”

  The air was soon filled with a slightly grainy vid file
, seemingly materializing out of nowhere, like a bad dream.

  An animated image of Hector Del Compo came into focus, pixellating slightly around the edges, saying, “--The Ministry’s team encountered more than just atmospheric perturbations, gentlemen. We also ran into some kind of strange organism…the men have taken to calling them demonio…in the river near Via Verde.”

  “What kind of organism?” Linx asked.

  Del Compo was physically located in a conference studio at the Ministry’s headquarters in Afalamos, the capital of Mondoro province. He turned from the screen a moment, then fed a separate embedded video stream into the data feed. Moments later, all screens were refreshed with new imagery, this time of one of the riverine creatures the expedition had captured.

  A ripple of anxiety washed through Linx’s office as the imagery became clearer. Avatars moved away uneasily from the fluctuating boundaries of the vid.

  “It’s vaguely humanoid,” del Compo narrated over the imagery. “It has radically modified lungs, and as you can see, extra appendages. We’ve scanned all of its internal structure as well, in some detail.” Ghostly images appeared, outlining the results of the scans. “There are the lungs, all four of them. Something that we’re calling a heart, or circulatory pump, and there are other organs we haven’t puzzled out yet. Interestingly, it has no brain or central cognitive-processing center that we can detect.”

  “Demonio…” Linx mulled over the word. “Little devil. And no brain…what the hell is it? An animal of some type?”

  Del Compo chose his words carefully. “I want to be precise in what I am saying here: the demonio is not an organism in the conventional sense. In the sense, General, that you and I are organisms. Properly speaking, it is a colony.”

  “A colony--?”

  “A colony of endosymbiotic structures, somewhat similar in appearance, external structure and apparent function to our ANAD mechanisms.”