The alien terraforming had made the atmosphere unbreathable—increasingly so—and several species of predatory alien fauna were taking a devastating toll on the lingering human species. Even after the Reprieve, humanity was losing, not gaining. So the tattered governments brought together all their resources and built on each of the Singularities a massive arcology, where human life could be sustained on a world no longer suited to it.
Coventry was one of five—now four—strongholds remaining. The Singularity powered her defenses, her communications link, her air purifiers and lights and temperature controls, her water pumps and hydroponics bays, her manufactory and matter synthesizers and all the other things that sustained this cosmos wreathed in steel. The singularity sustained Coventry, and Coventry was life.
The great arcology could sustain half a million people. Despite protection from all the alien hazards ravaging Earth, Coventry’s current population was around two hundred thousand. A plague had done its terrible work some decades past.
James passed through the showers and screenings as quickly as allowed, eager to walk again the clean and safe corridors of home. A good meal and some time with Callie would help him deal with what he’d seen at Faiyum.
Thinking about Callie was a good strategy for keeping down that wave of grief which, with his heightened neuromach sensitivities, threatened to overwhelm him. Callie would hum as she set the table, and complain about her shift while they ate, and make him laugh. When she caught him staring she would meet him with those eyes, those eyes, and if he reached out two fingers to touch her cheek–
“Tertius Carlyle?” James was accosted by a marine lieutenant, as humorless as they come.
“Yes?”
“Follow me, sir.”
Captain Fletcher had already been collected. The marine escorted them to one of the reserve lifts, and punched in the 151st floor. So; they were being summoned by the Castellan.
They came off the lift and walked those secluded corridors, bare of all decoration except for the occasional Coventry falcon emblem. It wasn’t James’ first visit, but such occasions were very seldom.
The doors slid apart with the barest whisper, and inside they were directed to chairs at a circular table. The attendants departed, leaving them alone with the Castellan.
Leah Harper, the Castellan, sat on a sort of nightmare throne in the center of the room, raised several feet above them. Her body was so entirely encased in cybernetic implants that she appeared to be made of metal—all except her face, which was clean and beautiful, almost plastic in perfection. A network of silvery wires like rigid hair connected the implants in her skull with the throne, and ultimately with Coventry’s main computer. Other tubes and mechanisms of green and blue and black sustained her body through the sedentary rigor of serving as Castellan.
She never moved, she never opened her eyes, she never spoke with her lips. As entirely as possible she was integrated with Coventry. She saw through the city cameras, heard through the ubiquitous microphones in every chamber, spoke by the speakers and controlled the image projectors. It was said that over the years of their tenure a Castellan became more and more identified with Coventry. Leah Harper had been Castellan for nearly seventy years; as far as anyone could tell, she seemed unaware of any distinction between herself and the great tower.
When they had been seated, the Castellan projected an image of herself sitting opposite them. It was the same projection she used in city communications through all the years, a three-dimensional holographic likeness of herself just before she’d taken the arcology throne; it had all her gestures and expressions and intonation, and even though it was a glow of blue light in conveyed far more humanity than the Castellan’s cybernetic body could. In fact, James thought the Castellan must have been very pretty, before she became Coventry.
She spoke, and her young voice managed to be profoundly authoritative and maternal. “Coventry has considered your report with great care. You did well to accomplish your mission swiftly and without losses. Now you will open your minds to me so that I may get as clear a picture as your memories can provide of everything you experienced, and discern if you might have overlooked something.”
That, of course, was why they had been brought to the Castellan’s chambers in the first place. The Castellan was always selected from among the most promising young neuromachs, but even for the most gifted neuromachy was easier and more potent at close proximity. James bristled, but he complied. It was rarely pleasant to have someone else probing your mind. Nor, he knew from considerable experience, was it altogether comfortable to be on the other end.
Captain Fletcher shuddered, but held himself still while Harper focused on him. When James’ turn came he tried to replay the memories in his mind, to lay out everything he saw and heard and felt.
Harper seemed satisfied. She spoke—as always, through the computer’s speech synthesizers, in perfect synch with her projection.
“Did either of you observe a prevalence of remains of very large insects?”
“No.”
“They show up in the data from your skimmer’s visual logs. Your memories include them only on the most subconscious layers; you saw them, but did not note it.”
“We were focused on locating the survivor,” James said. “And,” he admitted, “on the Reapers in the area.”
“That is natural,” she said, “though a pity you did not obtain a specimen. Visual analysis of the insect remains does not suggest a match to any known species; they appear to be of something analogous to the order Coleoptera, and average nine point seven centimeters in length.”
“Big beetles,” Fletcher said. “Do these insects have to do with the destruction of Faiyum?”
“Our data is insufficient, Captain.”
“Castellan?” James felt nervous addressing her, but his dread compelled him.
“Ask your question, Tertius Carlyle.”
“Have the other strongholds been informed about what we found? Do we have a plan for dealing with this?”
For a moment the Castellan was silent.
“A public announcement is forthcoming, in any case,” Harper said. “What you are about to hear, Coventry requires that you keep to yourselves until the public announcement. Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
“We have been in constant discussion with Atlanta and Shanghai. But Caracas went silent at zero nine hundred hours. Atlanta sent a recon mission. We expect the results will be the same as you discovered at Faiyum.” Silence returned. Then she added, “are you afraid?”
There was no point in denying it to her.
“Do not be,” the Castellan said. “You are safe in Coventry. Coventry will protect you.”
“Coventry will protect us,” the two replied.
They were dismissed with orders to rest.
When James returned to his quarters, he contacted Callie.
“Hey, hot-shot,” her teasing voice was immediately calming, “back from your big adventure outside?”
“Yeah, just got done debriefing.”
“You make any Reapers’ brains explode?”
“Heh. One, actually.”
“That’s my man.”
“Why don’t you come over? I want to see you.”
“James, James, don’t you know me by now? I saw the logs record your skimmer’s arrival.”
The door chirped. She was there, still in uniform from her shift down at the second hangar, where she commanded a guard detail. But she had her hair down, the way he liked it, and she smiled that smile.
James summoned a brave face.
“Lieutenant Macintyre, is this an official visit?” he said.
“I sure hope not.” She kissed him.
They ate dinner, and James tried to push all the revelations of the past days from his mind, to just act like things were normal. Then the Castellan’s projection came to life in the room and she made the announcement; there was no pretending after that.
At first Call
ie was angry at him for not saying anything, but his being ordered by the Castellan to keep it quiet dulled that. Then she became sympathetic, and listened to him describe it, and rubbed his back until he fell asleep.
The Faiyum man’s injuries were too extensive; medical said he might wake up, he might not. The Castellan ordered him neuroprobed despite his comatose state, which was tricky business. The honor fell to James—sometimes being talented only meant you got the lousy, dangerous assignments.
The Faiyum man was of middle age, olive-skinned and covered with marks from whatever he’d been through. After getting set up with a medical crew and taking a while through breathing rhythms, James breached his mind.
It was a tangled mess. An open mind wasn’t hard to work with, when you had the implants and training to use them. A resisting mind presented barriers to you, but those could be overcome in an orderly fashion with the proper application of force, if you were stronger. A sick mind, or an unconscious mind, was a labyrinth taxing and painful to probe; neuromachs had sustained brain damage doing this sort of work.
But then, neuromachy was a science in its infancy. It was an unwitting gift of the alien Singularities. In studying the machines humans had made an unexpected discovery: the use of one mind upon another. With appropriate technology, human minds could channel the energy of the Singularities into abundant electricity. By further study—and a lot of trial and error—they learned that certain minds could apply such technologies to touch and affect other minds. The neuromach mechanism, with its numerous powers, was born. But despite the connection between the Singularities and neuromachy, it was early impressed upon the neuromachs that they must never turn their minds upon the Singularity in the ways they did upon human and alien minds. To do that resulted in insanity, and shortly after, death.
But even venturing into human minds was typically unpleasant. This jaunt was painful in the extreme. Staving off madness, James managed to trace his way, racing through the pathways of the broken man’s mind. Amid the deadly chaos he found the memories they were searching for—revelations dark and terrible.
James watched the black swarm descending like a funnel, a whipping, hissing tornado. He heard the strain of metal twisting atop burned-out supports, the deafening crash as the citadel fell …
When they came out of it he was shaking and crying uncontrollably. They laid him down until the terror of the probe subsided.
Castellan Harper’s projection stood before him, listening in impassive silence as James described what he’d seen. “A swarm?” she said at last. “This you take to be literal?”
“I think so, sir.”
“It ate into Faiyum until the stronghold collapsed? How?”
“I don’t know, sir. I only have memories of the experience, no technical data.”
“Coventry will analyze this,” the Castellan said. “It is most likely that these insects were seeded by the aliens during the invasion, and have been incubating while they waited for the atmosphere to properly terraform into an environment suited to their thriving.”
“A sleeper weapon?” James asked.
“Possibly. Or possibly a regular part of the ecosystem the aliens wished to create. It would be useful to know how this swarm will be sustained by the current selection of alien flora and fauna.”
“It would be useful to know how to destroy them.”
The Castellan almost smiled. “Coventry will discover how to destroy them.”
James got two days off, during which time Coventry received news over the link with Atlanta. A projection of the Castellan made the announcement.
“Citizens of Coventry, take notice. Today at approximately 1300 hours we received a message from Atlanta, confirming that Caracas has been destroyed, evidently by the same swarming creatures that destroyed Faiyum. Atlanta also reports spotting some of these insects in their vicinity, and they are going silent in order not to attract attention. Do not request any link or neuromach communication with Atlanta.
“Our greatest minds, and all the resources of Coventry and our allies, are analyzing the situation and taking appropriate action. These are grim occurences, tragedies we will mourn; but do not be afraid. You are safe in Coventry. Coventry will protect you.”
James gave the customary reply, and he believed it—though not as fully as some. To challenge the safety of Coventry was sedition. But even knowing many people to be cynical, James wasn’t surprised when the news was met passively and without much furor. The histories told of riots; humanity didn’t riot anymore. There was nowhere to run to, no workable solution to propose other than staying inside and trusting Coventry.
He was given regular duty after the rest days, rotating between the barrier team and the Singularity channeling. This was the work he liked: inside, safe, doing his part to maintain that safety. Barrier duty was the work of five neuromachs in concert with specialized equipment to hold up the neuropathic barrier that was infallibly repellant to all the alien monsters roaming ruined Earth … except, apparently, this swarm.
Singularity channeling was more interesting, though just about as demanding on his concentration. James was one of ten neuromachs who had access to the secure chamber at ground level where the Singularity lay. The alien machine was a disk ten meters across, composed of some unknown alloy that shimmered like bronze but with patterns of prismatic color. Above it floated what appeared to be a ribbon of absolute blackness, roughly rectangular and two meters on each side, but thin as a hair. That black ribbon was, properly speaking, the Singularity. The disk generated it somehow, and even after two hundred years the humans had no understanding of its nature.
They had rules, though, from the experiments of the early days. You don’t touch the ribbon—you weren’t supposed to touch the disk either, but if you accidently brushed it, nothing noteworthy would happen. You don’t touch the ribbon, and you don’t turn your neuromachy on the disk as though it were a mind.
Avoid those two pitfalls and it was safe, interesting work. The neuromachs focused their energies on the ribbon and its image would fill their minds in a way that could be processed as a maze, almost a game. When they concentrated fully upon this maze, the machines they were plugged into could draw electrical energy in abundance from the ribbon. Thus had humanity survived for two centuries.
Off-shift, James spent time with Callie; but they didn’t do anything, go to the sports courts or the projection shows or dancing. They just went to one or the other’s rooms and sat on the couch and held each other. Terror had begun to grip Coventry. But it was an enervated, depressed, weary terror.
They were sleeping when the Castellan’s projection came on with another announcement.
“Citizens of Coventry, take notice. We have just received word from Atlanta that they are under attack by a swarm of the type we believe responsible for the destruction of Faiyum and Caracas. We may expect refugees. Be confident that all the resources of Coventry and our allies at Shanghai are turned upon this problem. This is a grim occurrence, a tragedy we will mourn; but do not be afraid. You are safe in Coventry. Coventry will protect you.”
Callie started crying, and James drew her close and fought back his own tears, trying to be strong for her.
No refugees arrived. None escaped. But James did receive a message that same night, by weak neuromach contact from Atlanta. He had some acquaintance with the Atlantan neuromach—there weren’t very many in the world who had the gift—but the thoughts were hurried, weird, and suddenly cut off. He tried to process the message for awhile, and eventually fell back asleep.
James was wakened by officers entering his quarters through a security override. Captain Fletcher was at the head, and he looked very uneasy.
“Pardon the intrusion, Tertius,” Fletcher said, genuinely apologetic. James was still blinking the sleep from his eyes. “The Castellan is summoning all neuromachs in shifts.”
“Oh,” he said stupidly. “Oh.”
“Please come with us.”
He came, to sta
nd alone in the chamber before her impassive cybernetic presence. He felt her mind probing his, and didn’t resist.
The projection appeared, and Castellan Harper spoke. “Tertius Carlyle, have you received neuromach contact from Atlanta tonight?”
“Yes,” he said. Even if he wanted to deceive her, she might only be asking about things she’d already discovered by probing in order to test his honesty.
“What was the content of that message?”
James shook his head, still trying to figure out if he’d misunderstood it. “It … seemed like he was telling me to ‘listen to the disk’ and ‘enter the Singularity.’”
“And what do you make of that?” the Castellan asked.
“I don’t know,” James said. “Do you think we should investigate it? It was the last contact from Atlanta, and if they were calling it out to all our neuromachs–”
“The provenance of this communication is irrelevant, Tertius. We know neuromach contact with the Singularity disk to be destructive to the mind and physical contact with the Singularity itself to be destructive to material. There is nothing here worth investigating.”
“I understand, Castellan,” James said. He was surprised to hear what he thought might be anger or fear touching on her usual clinical tones. “I only thought–”
“Coventry will not permit any further delving into these matters. The result can only endanger our people. Was anyone present with you when you received the contact from Atlanta?”
“Only Callie—Lieutenant Macintyre. She and I …”
“I know,” the Castellan interjected. “I have observed your courtship, and I approve.” That was a first. James hadn’t known that the Castellan took an interest in such matters. “You will not communicate about this incident with anyone. Agitating for a repurposing of the Singularity can and must be regarded as sedition, and merit the penalties thereof.”
James was aghast. “Castellan, I certainly never intended any disloyalty!”
“I know,” she said at once. “Do not fear. Coventry knows you are a devoted citizen. We have every confidence in your compliance. In loyalty to Coventry, you will speak of this to no one and you will not attempt to pursue the matter.”
Dark Horizons Page 7