The Messenger

by J. N. Chaney

  “I have a recommendation, Dash.”

  Dash blinked. “Oh. Okay, shoot.”

  “You should proceed to the Eye,” Sentinel said.

  “The Eye? What’s that?”

  As soon as he asked the question, he knew the answer. The Eye was yet another piece of ancient alien tech located on yet another of the multitude of comets making up the Pasture.

  “Ah, okay. I know what the Eye is. So why would I want to go there?”

  Dash expected to suddenly know why, but this time, he received a reply instead.

  “It is the first step on the path of the Legacy. As the Messenger, you must come to understand the Legacy of the Creators, who decided that such understanding must be a deliberate act, undertaken over a period of time.”

  “Okay, not sure I really understand that, but I guess that’s the point of this Legacy thing.” Dash braced himself. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  Nothing happened.

  “Uh, any time you’re ready, Sentinel.”

  “The Archetype is functioning normally.”

  “Okay, so…” But Dash trailed off. The way this thing worked, essentially substituting for his body, did that also apply to traveling through space?

  As an experiment, Dash tried to fly.

  Dash felt a smooth, powerful surge that somehow both was and was not movement. Or, rather, he felt the sensation of movement, but there was no acceleration. The Archetype simply began moving, sweeping majestically across the vast chamber holding it, and it headed straight toward a sheer wall of ice and rock.

  “Oh, shit.”

  Dash’s brain did its reflexive thing, flinging his hands up to protect his face. But his hands were titanic, vast metal constructs that slammed into the wall. The impact spalled off chunks of icy debris that whirled around the Archetype. To Dash, they swept past him—that is, him personally, and not the giant mech he was inside. He gasped and winced, then yelped as a hunk of rock and ice hurled directly toward his face. He tried to bat it away, but he missed and the frozen boulder slammed into his nose and shattered, the broken pieces flying off in new directions. He felt the impact, but didn’t, just as he felt himself moving, but didn’t.

  He relaxed a touch. This was weird.

  Taking a couple of deep breaths, he said, “Right. Is there a way out of this comet?”

  “The substance of this body is little obstacle to the Archetype. That was deliberate in its design. There would be little point in trapping the Archetype here.”

  The last sentence had been delivered in the same dispassionate tone as all the rest, but Dash couldn’t help feeling the words you dummy silently hung off the end of it.

  “Okay. Well, so let’s try this, then.”

  Dash reached for the wall, hesitated, then dug his fingers into it.

  Whatever propelled the Archetype kept him firmly in place, not rebounding in a Newtonian way as he pushed his hand into the wall. He felt (and, again, didn’t feel) his fingers sink into the ice. He pulled his hand back, scooped out a huge chunk of the chamber wall, and flung it aside.

  Dash couldn’t help grinning. This is amazing.

  He shoved his other hand into the wall and dug out a chunk. Then he went to it in earnest, tearing the wall open, digging his way out of the comet.

  Dash’s hand crashed through the ice and encountered nothing. Through the resulting gap, he could see the blackness of space. He’d reached the surface.

  It had only taken minutes.

  Again, Dash decided to go that way. The Archetype responded by accelerating into the remains of the ice, easily smashing through in a shower of debris and soaring into space, away from the comet.

  And just like that, Dash was a spaceship. He was flying.

  It was one of the most marvelous, and yet most terrifying things he had ever experienced.

  Space was dangerous. It was an airless, radiation-charged void that alternated between stellar heat and vast cold. A human would survive only moments exposed to its brutally harsh reality. That was why, of course, humans travelled through it in complex ships, and wore cumbersome, hermetic vac suits. What they didn’t do was fly through space the way they might swim through water, essentially naked.

  But that was exactly what Dash was doing now.

  Okay, not exactly. His frail, fleshy self was safe cocooned in a vast construct of alien tech. But the experience of it was just that. Dash felt as though he flew through space, that there was no alien construct, just him, soaring through space as though he’d been born to it. Once more, he could both feel and, yet, not feel, the emptiness of a vacuum, the heat and radiation pouring from the stars in the Globe of Suns beating on one side of him, a cold nearing absolute zero on the other.

  “Okay,” he said, zooming away from the comet, “this is really something.”

  Whatever drove the Archetype—his Sentinel at the helm-- was smooth, powerful, and silent. If he decided to go faster, he did. If he decided to slow down, or turn, or spin himself around, he did. It was like moving his hand or his foot; he did it, and it happened.

  In what seemed like no time at all, he closed on another comet. This one wasn’t rotating. Something was keeping it locked into one position and orientation. And it was, indeed, his destination. This was the Eye.

  Dash flipped a somersault, so he approached the Eye feet-first. His experience in no-g was eminently helpful here; all he had to do was what he’d do in an environment free of gravity and the Archetype would respond, instead of his actual body, which simply remained comfortably ensconced in the cradle. As he approached the comet, he slowed himself down and finally landed on his feet, flexing his knees. He stumbled a bit—because he wasn’t that experienced with no-g—but remained upright. Now, standing on the Eye, he looked around.

  A short distance away was another alien…thing. This one was a smooth, polished dome, with a variety of protrusions—some tubular, some square, some just elongated prisms.

  “So that’s the Eye?”

  “It is,” Sentinel said.

  “Okay, so how does it work? What do I do?”

  “You must exit the Archetype and go to it. You will understand its function.”

  “Ah.”

  Dash frowned. He had to exit the big mech, which meant leaving behind this stupendous sense of almost god-like freedom and power. He suddenly found himself reluctant.

  “I can’t use it from here?”

  “You cannot.”

  “Well shit.” That led to another problem. He still wore his vac suit, and his helmet was nearby, but the suit’s oxygen supply had been depleted.

  Except the indicator read that it was fully charged—oxygen, power, thruster fuel, even the drinking water were all at the maximum.

  Of course they are.

  He wondered how he would exit the cradle, his movements not just being performed by the Archetype, but it obviously understood his intent. He was able to lever himself free and put on his helmet. As soon as he did, the atmosphere around him vanished and the Archetype opened. After a last look back at the cradle—which looked so inviting—he stepped out, thrusting himself down to the frozen surface, and started for the Eye.

  The comet was, he realized, being held in place by something similar to the Archetype’s drive, some smoothly powerful force, like constantly-firing engines. But there was no exhaust, no expulsion of reaction mass at all. Even ignoring everything else about the Archetype—the Eye, for that matter, or even the Lens and the Ribbon—such a drive by itself would be a scientific and commercial revolution throughout the Galactic Arm. Dash wouldn’t be able to spend the credits fast enough, just for that tech alone.

  As he bounced up to the Eye, though, it struck him that, no matter how he felt about it, the Unseen behind all of this probably weren’t interested in making him rich. This was obviously about something more. Much more. So, he’d examine the Eye and then do whatever came next.

  As it turned out, the Eye was surprisingly simple and not that spectacular, really. T
here was no door, just an opening leading into the dome. Inside, he found an array of what seemed to be telescopes, except each seemed to be designed for a different type of eye, or other sensory organ. The fact that it was more alien tech and had stood for who knew how long—maybe two hundred thousand years—essentially unharmed on this comet, was just another bit of amazing among all this other amazing. But, in the end, it was really just an observatory. Dash found himself a little disappointed.

  “Okay,” he said, “I guess I’m here to look at something.” He scanned the thirty-odd different eyepieces, or whatever you’d call something obviously intended for use by something absolutely not even remotely human. It was hard to tell which he should use, though.

  “It should be evident which is appropriate for you,” Sentinel said.

  Dash jumped. The voice seemed no different than it had in the Archetype, which meant he must be hearing it inside his head—as he had been all along. The clarity was disturbing; the immediacy of the words, reassuring.

  “So you’re still with me, huh?”

  “The connection remains until it is ended.”

  “Oh. And how does that happen, Sentinel?”

  “Through your choice, or in the event the Archetype is destroyed or otherwise compromised.”

  “My choice, huh? So if I choose to sever this connection, can I get it back?”

  “That depends on the circumstances.”

  Okay, that wasn’t a yes. Good to know. What he also knew was which eyepiece was the correct one. He moved to it and pressed his faceplate against it. Instead of a tiny circle of image, though, his vision immediately filled with a view of another comet, except this one was so dark it was easier to make out because of how it occulted the stars behind it.

  “Alright,” he said, “it’s another comet. So?”

  “This is the first step along a path defined by the Creators, that could eventually lead to an ultimate understanding of their purpose,” Sentinel said.

  “Why don’t they just, you know, tell me their purpose? Why turn it into a sort of scavenger hunt?”

  “Again, they wish such discovering and understanding to be a deliberate act, not something that simply occurs by happenstance.”

  Dash sighed. “Okay, then. I guess that dark comet is our next stop.” He pulled away from the telescope and the image vanished. Still, he knew exactly where that dark comet was, and how to get there. So this was, it seemed, more than just a passive telescope, it was also a navigation device. Looking through it, at anything, would tell you exactly how to get to it.

  That would be yet another priceless bit of alien tech. As he headed back for the Archetype—which really was enormous, looming over him as he approached—he was almost starting to not be astounded by all this.

  Dash flew through space.

  As he did, he experimented with his ability to control the Archetype. It seemed simple enough—do whatever with his body, and the Archetype did it instead. He still had no idea what actually drove it, allowing it to rapidly accelerate, decelerate, and change direction, all without much worry about things like inertia; it was as though the Unseen had reached a point where things like physical laws became something more like guidelines. In fact, he did find that he possessed, or at least could access knowledge pertaining to how the Archetype worked, but none of it really meant much too him. It was like reading a highly technical, scientific paper about some esoteric subject. He could do it, but he wouldn’t understand it. That appeared to be a limitation of his brain.

  And probably a good one. He knew he’d undergone some sort of rewiring, but he was still Dash. Changing too much would have him become something else—and not only was that something he didn’t particularly want, it seemed to suit the purposes of the Unseen and their path to discovery. Although that did raise a question.

  “These Creators, are they the Unseen?”

  “Because of your limited understanding, as well as fanciful conjecture and wishful thinking, what you think of as the Unseen is vague. But it likely does correspond, at least in part, to the Creators, yes.”

  “Amazing how you can be both helpful and condescending at the same time.”

  “I have no particular, emotional intent,” Sentinel said.

  “That I don’t doubt.”

  Dash flew on, until the black comet came into view. He accelerated himself toward it. He was actually starting to get used to this bizarre and almost dreamlike way of traveling through space, and he soon sensed something was approaching.

  Dash just knew it. Something, no, several somethings. They were ships. Three of them, small and fast. Dash looked turned and immediately saw them. They were Echoes, or something very similar. Clan Shirna ships for sure. But they were inside the Pasture. They shouldn’t be here, which meant Nathis must be getting desperate.

  No, wait. Their power signatures were all different. The fusion drive of one was running rough. In fact, as he studied them, Dash could tell they were in various states of repair, using a range of different components. Every Clan Shirna ship he’d encountered to date had been impeccably maintained and, among the ships of a given type, utterly uniform in essentially every way. These weren’t, not at all.

  They might be a dissident group. Some sort of cell or sect that had no qualms about entering the Pasture. Or maybe they weren’t Clan Shirna at all, and were just raiders, using barely-maintained Clan Shirna tech.

  They drove right toward him.

  “Well, I wonder what they’re going to think of me?”

  The question was answered when, a few seconds later, the three ships launched a salvo of missiles and particle beam fire at the Archetype. At him.

  15

  The missiles came streaking in. But Dash barely had time to spare for them, instead trying to dodge as particle cannon fire tore through space around him.

  Several beams hit, raking across the Archetype. Dash had wondered if the weapons could actually harm the monstrous construct, but they could. Its substance boiled off into space, leaving trails of vaporized metal in its wake. Dash winced at the impacts, feeling what would have been pain, had it actually been his body. It was damage, though. And he continued to feel it, in the sense that he knew immediately where the Archetype had been hit and how badly.

  So far, not badly at all, but that could change quickly.

  “Hey, Sentinel. Can that be…um, fixed?”

  “Repairs are underway. Recomposition is in effect.”

  In that bizarre way he shared data instantly with Sentinel, Dash knew that meant the damaged material of the Archetype was repairing itself. Somehow, it seemed to combine the obdurate strength of metal with some of the organic properties of living flesh. It was yet another technological wonder that would make him stupendously wealthy.

  Dash cursed. Distracted, the missiles had closed unimpeded. He flung himself aside and two streaked past, their engines burning furiously as they tried to turn and come back for another run. A third was about to impact, though.

  Just as he had in the icy cavern right before he crashed into the wall, Dash flung up a hand.

  The missile detonated against his open palm.

  There was a dazzling flash, and a shock of impact against his hand. The missile’s warhead had its blast effect dialed down. Whoever these attackers were—Clan Shirna, breakaways therefrom, or someone else entirely—they obviously wanted to try to disable the Archetype so they could claim it for themselves.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

  Dash flung himself toward the raiders, and they scattered. He picked one and zoomed after it. Its fusion exhaust blew past him, but he held back, not wanting to test the Archetype’s ability to resist and repair damage by simply flying into the incandescent plasma plume. Instead, he considered weapons. He knew the Archetype had them, but he hadn’t given them much thought so far. He only had so much room for wonder.

  “Seekers, and a dark-lance cannon,” Sentinel said.

  “That’s missiles and a sort of beam, ri
ght?”

  “Correct.”

  He looked at the raider ahead, who had slewed to one side and was burning at full power, desperately trying to get from out in front of the Archetype. Dash simply arced after, following him.

  The raider slewed again, a last-ditch effort to bring its particle cannon to bear. Dash made a snap decision to use the dark-lance but had no idea exactly how.

  A solid beam of something that seemed to be the opposite of light suddenly connected the Archetype and the raider. He could only see it because it lensed the stars behind it, briefly turning them to smeared whirls of light. Where it touched the raider, the beam simply made matter disappear. The raider’s ship was suddenly just fragments, themselves abruptly vanishing into a searing wash of light and radiation as the fusion core blew.

  “Oh wow.”

  A particle beam gouged him across the back.

  He did a somersault and found himself facing a raider that had fallen in behind him. He looked at it and decided to use the beam again.

  Nothing.

  “The dark-lance projector must recuperate, Dash. It is currently operating at its lowest power setting.”

  Two thoughts instantly flashed through Dash’s mind:

  That was its lowest power setting?

  And why?

  But he didn’t have time to consider either. The raider fired again, raking its particle beam across his face. Again, Dash winced.

  “Okay, that was just rude.”

  But the dark-lance was, indeed, still stuck in some sort of recharging cycle. So he thought about a seeker instead—

  Something flashed away from the Archetype on an insane acceleration curve. Of course, it left no exhaust. It was just a small projectile, probably no bigger than Dash himself, but in a few seconds it was traveling at a speed the Slipwing could only have reached with minutes of acceleration. Neither Dash nor the raider pilot had time to see much more than a quick blur, then the raider crumpled in on itself, imploding into a tight ball of wreckage. An instant later it erupted into a dazzling explosion of breached plasma core.