“You might not want to do that, Ming,” he advised.
“So you expect the Commander would assault me, Captain?”
He took another drink. “I'd say it's about the same as flipping a coin at this point, Machine Lord.”
Ming examined the Commander. She appeared calm on the surface, but her bioreadings showed elevated blood pressure and adrenaline levels, and frantic brainwave patterns.
“You are a highly skilled martial artist, Commander. I've observed recordings of your matches from years past and I was duly impressed. I have programmed myself with a hand-to-hand instruction set, but I have only so far pitted it against the simulator and our onboard androids. I have to admit I'm curious to see how I would fair against a skilled human opponent such as yourself.”
“You can find that out right now if you like,” she smiled.
“Machine Lord, I don't think we're talking about a friendly sparring session here. Mei is quite lethal,” warned the Captain.
EMERGENCY CORE ACTIVATION. LEVEL 1 HEMISPHERIC CONFLICT. CORE to Subprime core, arbitrate. R-ART: L-ORG in HCM requests primer instruct to deactivate SEC restraints on hostile entity in proximity to CORE vessel, COM LI MEIYANG. ACTION POSES HIGH RISK POTENTIAL TO CORE VESSEL. ACTION UNMITIGATED. End argument. L-ORG: Minimal Risk. Human asset recruitment and management requires CORE VESSEL interaction. End argument. Subprime to CORE: SUB RULES IN FAVOR OF R-ART. UNNECCESSARY RISK TO CORE VESSEL. LEVEL 1 HEMISHPHERIC CONFLICT adjudicated and resolved. L-ORG CORE: Resume HCM.
“I have no desire to harm the Commander,” Ming said, straightening himself into a more formal posture and adopting a dismissive tone. “We will soon set course for Beixing Prime. Captain, Commander, let me know when you have reached a decision.”
And with that, Ming walked out of the auxiliary bridge, releasing their restraints as the doorway sealed behind him.
The Wall
Darkness. Complete darkness. Gahre was on his back and below him was a soft quilt smooth in texture like silk. He could feel his heart faintly beating and he was drawing breath. Did he live? This was not the first time in the span of a year he had awoken to face this daunting question. He touched his body, clad in a thin loose robe, and determined it was indeed that of a full grown man and not that of an infant, ruling out the possibility he had been reincarnated. The cracks and cuts on his face were now moist and healing. His skin was clean and smelled of medicinal ointments. His feet were sore and still heavily calloused. Would the body still breathe and heal and suffer pain in the afterworld? No, he concluded, I live. But I am blind.
He was fully hydrated. He felt at the ground, and there was the same silky smoothness to it, but it shifted as he bore own upon it. Sand. He found a wall of the same cloth and ran his hand along it until it touched a vertical rod of thin solid material at a corner. He ran his hand along it and realized it was part of a frame. He followed the frame until he painfully stubbed his toe against a large hard object on the floor. Kneeling to tactilely investigate it, he determined it was wooden and rectangular with a seam offset below the top. A chest! He located the mechanism, opened it, and dove his hands into to ascertain its contents. He received a most unexpected surprise and withdrew his hands at once from the frigidly cold liquid he had plunged them into. He sniffed at his fingers. Water. Again he went in and found not just water, but a large block of what felt like ice, amid numerous soft wrapped packagings. The packagings were tied and wrapped in what felt like waxed paper. He tore one open and sniffed at it. Food! It was... a sandwich?! To the delight of his palette he bit in. Bread, sliced beef, cheese, fresh onion, lettuce, and dill yogurt dressing. How could this be? Famished as he was he delayed his wondering and scarfed it down in seconds. Moving along the walls of what he could only surmise was a tent, he came to an area of flaps covering a vertical zipper. He had used a zipper before, in uncle's workshop, a large clunky device prone to all manner of malfunction but not without practical application. This one was much different, much smaller with fine precision teeth and an equally well-crafted tiny metal puller at its base. He pulled up on the zipper and was met with... light, white glaring light. Gahre recoiled from it and covered his eyes until they could adjust.
Beyond the opening and spread in all directions was the same unforgiving Sea of Sand he knew so intimately. Moreover, this was the same location where he had fallen. The outer surface of the tent shimmered in the way he imaged a mirage would, coated by bright, reflective mirrored silver that completely reflected Cearulei's rays. There was his tarp covering a mound in the sand, and beneath that were water skins, all filled, and all the dry rations he could carry with them. What angel had performed this miraculous intervention?
There were tracks, boot marks in three sets with precise and intricate treading all about the campsite, yet none leading to it or away. There also were track marks of a carriage or a sleigh with the sand blown radially about them. They led nowhere, just appeared at that point. Was this a “flying ship” the like of which carried Dhrussius to the redmoon Oberion and his father to Rubeli? It surely was! He could conceive of no other explanation.
But what did not add up was firstly how whoever these men were could have found him, and secondly why they would assist him in this manner and be off on their way rather than simply arrest him? He shook his head in confusion supposing he ought just be grateful to be alive. Regardless of all the mystery the situation presented, there were still immediate concerns to attend to, alone as he still was in the middle of a vast desert.
He ate the rest of the fresh food and drank of the chest’s icewater to his bodily limit. The tent had been exceptionally engineered so that it broke down easily and weighed no more than two kilograms. The sleeping bag as well compressed to a tiny volume and added only a negligible weight. He would tote this fine gear with him for sure. He reckoned the new provisions and water would carry him through another eight to ten days of traverse, which would not be enough to return him to the second oasis alive. There was only one direction to take: the same one as always, onward and eastward.
The tent proved superior and far less labor to erect than the ground shelters had been to excavate. This conservation of bodily energy allowed him to travel further distances night by night, until he saw the first sign of green, ragged patches of grass and cacti in the outcroppings that a day later began to appear in greater abundance on low areas of ground. He could taste the hint of moisture in the air that told him the other side drew near. A shimmering horizon coalesced into a glistening lake with greenery beyond it. The lake itself was saline, as he discovered after being repulsed at his first and only taste of its waters, but beyond the far shore of it, the world grew ever more fertile. He kissed the green land as he came upon it and followed it to further stretches of growing humidity, until he was absorbed into the heart of a hilly jungle. The Far Forest!
It was a land of extremes, huge old growth forests, raging rivers, and enormous fauna. Great herds of roaming elephants shook the terra as they trumpeted their approach. Fierce and cunning predators, like the white tiger, who stalked him at every turn. Gahre resumed a day schedule and took to sleeping in the high branches with the smaller though no less intrusive canopy dwellers. Fire was his ally, and he wielded a flaming torch at all times, fending off gangs of angry monkeys and repelling dense and hostile swarms of insects. There was no sign of man at all, present or past. Not a humble rock piling or abandoned fire pit. It was a purely virgin realm, undespoiled by the mark of man, filled with diverse and fascinating species. Gahre had not recorded this journey, but if he had a notebook and half an aptitude for sketching, he thought he would like to make a studious record of this place, for surely no one would believe the telling of it otherwise.
A raging southbearing river barred his passage to the west. He followed it south into a lowland where he came upon a sight of natural wonder his eyes could scarcely believe. The river dropped low and a gorge rose up about it, rendering the path untraversable, so he moved west inland and th
en traced a southern path until the land rose once more. Then he went east again until he again came upon a river, this one flowing north! He had only bypassed about a twenty kilometer span south of the southflowing river. How could this be, two rivers at such proximity on the same line of longitude, one flowing south and another north into it? The banks of the northern flowing river were traversable, and he followed it back north to a gorge where this riddle of nature unveiled its fantastic answer. It was a magnificent gorge, kilometers round with vertical rocky cliffs dropping into a subterranean abyss, a gaping terrestrial maw both rivers mightily cascaded into from both sides. This terrestrial drain was by far the wildest thing he'd seen in all his travels, and he imagined there must be an entire underground network of lakes and seas or a hollow void within the world immense enough to contain this continual volume of water without overflowing.
It also barred further eastern passage from any nearby latitudes. He judged the southern northflowing river to be the more the passive of the two and made his way south along it until it widened and shallowed. Bamboo was in ample supply here, and he spent a day gathering the widest seasoned poles of it along with reeds for the strappings of a raft. From the far south of the widening he was able to cross diagonally, across and down with the current to a landing point on the other shore just before it narrowed back again into raging waters.
Here the land became flatter and tamer, with more open fields and gentler creatures that grazed upon them. It was in one of these large open spaces he made a peculiar discovery. The flora on the far end of the field was completely different than where he entered it, which was odd since there was nothing to keep any species of plant from seeding their way across it. He noticed a strange wave come over him in the middle of it. Sounds suddenly became clearer. He could hear the songs of distant birds as though they were near. The air smelled different, and there was a discordant energy about the place, nervous and vibrating in his head. Then it swept away, and his senses regained their normal states, only for the strange air to return and wash back over him again in a couple of hours. He remained at this location and made camp for the night, observing how this incongruity ebbed and flowed over him in two hour cycles. As he passed beyond the far edge of the plain, the discordant state became more and more the norm. It was almost like a buzzing or a light burning in his brain. It was an irritation he was not readily able to adapt to, and so just resigned himself to bear.
Only a few hours into the day’s trek he noticed a thin gray line appear on the horizon and grow thicker as he approached. Gahre scouted out the highest scalable tree and climbed to the highest branch of it that would support his weight to scout out a better view of the distance. There it was, running north to south, horizon to horizon, gray, tall, and ominous: a wall. The Wall! Gahre's heart raced as he carelessly slid down from the heights of the tree, gathered his gear, and burst toward it in a full run. He ran and jumped over root, stump, and stream. With thorny brush tearing at his robes and gear clanging on his back, he sprinted over the last leg of this transformative journey.
He emerged on it where the wood line cleared. Heaving still for breath he raised his eyes up and up and up at the immensity of the wall til Cearulei's glare partially obscured its monumental heights towering some 150 meters above him in a wall of stones stacked to vertical exactitude. The stones, he noted, were cut at right angles but not were blocks. They varied in shape and size and were fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, and so precisely he could not slide a sheet of fine parchment between them.
The height of this grand partition was daunting, greater than he had dared to imagine. He dropped his gear and stripped down to the bare minimum. The climbing gear that had burdened him across an entire continent would at last see its full utility. One thing for certain, he did not have enough anchors, not nearly enough, which called for a tedious strategy of small incremental climbs that recycled the anchors. Fatigue would be a major issue to contend with. He would have to set his harness comfortably enough to rest frequently during the ascent, an ascent that would by all practical measure be regarded as a non-starter by even the most experienced climber with a full range of gear. It was almost as suicidal a prospect as crossing the desert had been. But he had not allowed that momentous obstacle to stop him, nor would he let this one final barrier. He tapped in the first anchor, then the second, and got the straining tedious ascent strategy he had determined underway. Once he got off fully off the ground everything became extraordinarily difficult: removing the anchoring, angling himself, his skin chaffing in the harness and against the stone facing. Not ten meters up, his large powerful arm muscles reached their failing point from fatigue, so he precariously hung there and rested for ten minutes. Not long after he resumed the ascent, he felt his arms giving out again. This cycle worsened by each iteration as he ascended inch by hard won inch -as did the delirium, dizziness, and burning pain as he struggled on hour after hour until he reached 100 meters.
At 100 meters, he could now see beyond those dueling rivers he had crossed in the west. Then something terrible happened. He didn't realize the terror, but watched it placidly as if in a dream. The wrist-strap of his pickhammer broke, and then the instrument itself slipped away entirely from his bleeding fingers. In slow motion he watched it falling, spinning, down to the base and heard it land with an almost imperceptible thud, before the realization of it struck. With no pickhammer he could neither recover nor place the battered anchors. There was only one option now, and that was to loose himself from the harness and drop to certain death.
What a cruel predicament! He sighed, gazing out upon the domains he'd conquered, rewinding through his entire journey. In the jungles of the Great Oak, he had been poisoned and on the verge of death, but was at least able to move forward. In the Sea of Sand, it was the same. And he had had no control over the time. But here and now, he was just stuck in place to linger between life and death until he made the determination to end it. Whatever guardian angel had been looking for out him must surely have grown weary of saving him by now. These were not, after all, terrible events thrust upon him by fate; they were entirely caused by his own will and actions. He had come face to face with mortality enough times by now that he could shrug his shoulders at it and just enjoy the magnificent view in a state of mind that transcended time itself.
There was a fluttering above him, like flapping wings. He cocked his head upward and saw a line of whiteness unravelling its way toward him from above and stopping beside him with a marked thwap. It was a rope ladder! He blinked his eyes several times and took stock of his mind for a moment to be certain this was not another hallucination, but there it persistently remained. What else was there to do, but grab hold of it and climb? Once he had secured his frame to the fine ropes of the ladder, it began to move on its own, up and up, as though pulled by a winch. It stopped before he could round the crest of the parapet. A large familiar hand reached down to him, and as he grasped it, he looked up to see the even more familiar face it belonged to: Indulu.
“Up with you, boy. Come on, together...!” With a final cooperative strain they hauled his hulking mass up and over and then onto the mercifully horizontal stone pavings atop the wall.
Gahre stood and staggered. He looked about dizzily, then turned turned to Indulu as if to speak and saw there was a young girl beside him dressed like something out of a storybook. But... he did not address either of them. Instead he very quickly recast his eyes east to a stretch of astonishing sights and wonders that held him immediately dumbstruck and spellbound.
“Take it all in, blessed one. You've surely earned this.” Indulu's voice barely registered to Gahre’s ears so marveled were his eyes.
There were.... there were... machines just hovering in the air high and low above the land. He saw a mirrored building of many segments and stories, each bursting with greenery. The floors terraced out like steps and the segments of the building seemed to be turning and reshaping the entire structure. There were geometrically perfect cone
s terraced with crops that stood spiking up higher than he atop this great wall. Fields and fields of crops in every configuration, enough food to feed the world! And large long mechanical arms were running over them, spraying mists that left rainbows in their wake. There were clusters of buildings towering up hundreds of stories into the clouds interconnected by a web of walkways: a shining silver city.
“The mirrored terraces move to make the most efficient use of Cearulei's light upon the crops,” explained Indulu. “Those taller buildings yonder are human settlements.”
But Gahre's eyes had already affixed themselves upon a singularly awestriking vision far to the south. There was a red column that rose out of the ground and into clouds, and then emerged through the top of them and continued to rise into the clouds above them until it tapered away completely into the uppermost heights of the sky. Elegantly vehicles were moving up and down the length of it. It was as something he had imagined from the old faerie tale of the boy and the beanstalk. He pointed to it, jaw agape.
The little girl laughed and said something he could not understand.
“Speak Pangean, child, and only when you're meant to!” Indulu scolded her then answered Gahre's wonderment. “That is a space elevator. It is used to transport the foodstuffs beyond the atmosphere where there is no air and from there export those goods to other worlds on flying ships.”
“A stairway to heaven?” asked Gahre.
“Well, no, it's an elevator. You wouldn't want to take the stairs, trust me. There are four more on that latitude east over the horizon.”
The girl giggled at this. Gahre turned to them. “Honored One, I don't even know what to say. It is ordered in a way entirely unlike my world. There is not one speck of this land that has not been tamed by these... machines.”
“You are as yet merely peering into this rabbit hole, but welcome anyway to the Machine World.”
DUALITY: The World of Lies Page 27