Gods and The City

by Steve Statham

  But he was there, before the fall. Before he was Tower.

  She sees it all through his eyes.

  The memories flow.

  They are walking through a city, a great city that seems to go on forever. The man who would become Tower is talking to another man as they walk. Masses of people surge past. The structures that loom over them are astonishing—old buildings and new, shouldered together, a symphony of architectural styles that somehow unites as one. A culture etched in stone and steel.

  The yellow sun warms his/her face. Talia is dazzled by the sensations. As the memory intensifies, smells from that day awaken from dim corridors of the god's mind. The old world is alive before her.

  With so much to see and feel, it takes an effort to focus on Tower's companion as he talks. He looks vaguely familiar, although she can't place why. They are discussing some old Earth technology problem that Talia has trouble following. She is beginning to wonder why the god has shared this particular memory but does not dare stop to ask, lest the spell be broken. She feels like she could stay here forever. It is the ultimate account of the past, an archive that no one has mined except the god himself.

  The city thrums with life around her. Everywhere, people are going about productive enterprises. Vehicles of every color roll by on crowded roads, passing mere inches from the crowds along the sidewalk. On the horizon, the faint outline of a space elevator reaches up through the blue blanket of Earth's atmosphere.

  Talia realizes that more people lived in this single city than in all of humanity's current fortresses. It is humanity unbowed, unbroken.

  It is a humbling—and infuriating—realization.

  This City on this small moon we are so proud of, it is nothing, nothing, compared to the greatness of humanity's original home, she tells herself. The thought burns like acid in her brain.

  She sees that the domed encampment they so pridefully call "The City" is merely a pitiful light shivering in the darkness, a grimy little outpost hiding in the shadows.

  They took so much from us!

  Tower reads the anger inside her and does nothing to calm it. She feels a similar strain within him.

  She speaks to him, even as they relive the ancient memory.

  "You want me to feel these red thoughts, don't you?"

  "To be a guardian, you have to appreciate what you're guarding. Witness what we were. What we can be. Never let it be taken again."

  Talia feels the god's resolve through their link. She guides her attention back to the streets of the past and the man walking beside them.

  "But don't you see, Jensen," he is saying. "You've just come back from their world. You've guessed what they're about to do. And if we can't also leave our bodies behind we'll always be at the mercy of whatever natural or unnatural forces are aligned against us."

  "I don't argue that, Ethan," the man who was not yet Tower said. "I only point out that abandoning flesh and bone will make us as alien to one another as we are to these Otrid the Benefactors tell us about. Human beings are as much body as spirit. What will we lose to achieve this disembodiment?"

  "Life is more than blood pumping through veins," he replies. "Consciousness is the key attribute, the power that must be preserved. A hostile species could cleanse the planet of life, but a human race that exists inside hidden energy streams survives. Look to the higher powers in the galaxy. What are they, if not minds free of physical limits? I'm telling you, I've researched some of these higher powers and I think I've identified some of the pathways they took..."

  Talia studies this odd companion. Who is this man? He is short, with sharp features and a burning intensity in his eyes. His hair is sprinkled with strands of gray. But something about him seems oddly familiar.

  Talia is tired of guessing and with a sudden insight realizes she can grab the knowledge from the god's mind.

  Maelstrom! This was Maelstrom before his transformation!

  She is thrilled and frightened at the same time. The mightiest of the gods in his original mortal form!

  She marvels that she now knows the human name of great Maelstrom. Ethan. His name was Ethan. She rolls the sound of it around in her mind. It sounds archaic, a name from another era, a lost culture.

  Now she wants to capture this memory down to the smallest detail. She tries to burrow into the very surface of the Earthly city, but Tower draws her back into a wider view.

  "This conversation is not the only reason I brought you here," Tower says. "Watch. See our world."

  Talia feels apprehension growing in Tower's mind.

  A blinding flash bursts above the ancient city. The sky is shredded by talons of light. In Tower's memory, the people fall silent and look up. A series of echoing booms follow shortly after. In the distance, expanding domes of fire swell on the horizon.

  All is chaos then, as the throngs of people scramble for shelter.

  Talia understands what she is being shown, even as she recoils from the truth. She is watching the fall of Earth itself, the day the planet's defenses were breached and the invaders arrived, bent not on conquest but extermination.

  Intellectually, she knows what happened. She has studied the historic accounts and the facts of that time. But those are merely cold words and disintegrating images on screens.

  Now she feels the panic of that day, truly understands the enormity of the crime committed against them all.

  Sadness and revulsion fight within her, yet she forces herself to watch. The lost city burns, and Talia feels the terror that even Jensen felt, the helplessness that the god does not try to hide or dilute as he shares his past with her....

  She is wrenched away.

  Tower's memory has vanished with an abruptness as jarring as lights slicing through darkness, like being ripping from the deep dreams of sleep.

  Talia is alone, a small, feeble body tied into the machinery of the god chamber. During the brief interlude into the god's memory, she has been transformed even further. She can see the living metal fused with her body, but knows the unseen agents within her have worked even more change. Even to herself she appears monstrous.

  Am I still even human?

  But Talia is also aware of new powers growing within her, dormant abilities that frighten and intrigue her at the same time. She feels... larger. There is an anticipation growing within her, as if she is on the cusp of a great discovery. But this new part of her waits just at the edge of her consciousness. She knows she must reach out and activate these abilities if she ever wants to know the true extent of what has happened inside her.

  Still, she is hesitant.

  "Tower? Where are you?"

  There is no answer.

  "Gods," she pleads, her voice a whisper. "What have you done to me?"

  13

  The Godpaths

  The sudden appearance of the first pursuing ship didn't worry Mik very much. It hung back at the edge of sensor range, an ominous presence, but one that was apparently not yet closing on his position.

  The arrival of the second one, however, put a lump in his throat and an unwelcome clenched feeling in his chest.

  A sheen of sweat rose on his brow as he struggled to calculate the intercept angles. The problem was, his own ship was not traveling in anything resembling a linear course. Viewing the ship's path, Mik had been shocked at how the route zigged and juked in seemingly random fashion.

  He was heading in the right direction, of course. And his rate of travel was so far beyond the speed of light that he had been forced to discard most of his old notions on the nature of the physical universe. "Divine Space" indeed.

  The ship was moving, if it could truly be considered motion in any traditional sense, by folding and bending the firmament of the universe like a sheet of paper being crumpled. The starship then followed the seams and cracks through space itself that were generated ahead of it. The forces unleashed by the ship reconfigured and shortened the distance between the Lodias system and the nearby globular cluster where Maelstrom was suppos
ed to be residing, doing whatever it is gods do.

  Normally, an autonomous ship mind would navigate these shoals, Mik knew, probably doing so as easily as a human being draws breath.

  But he had to work at it. And he quickly realized his five human senses were entirely inadequate to the task of deciphering the nuances of Divine Space. More than once he dropped out of this strange shortcut through the void and had to relaunch the sequence that accessed this alternate path through the galaxy.

  It seemed impossible that the energies required for this method of propulsion could be generated within the hull of this single ship, but then recent events had forced Mik to adjust many of his views on what was and wasn't possible.

  When Mik tried to picture the process that was hurling him beyond the limits of light speed or gravitational influence, he kept returning to the image of the starship falling down some endless underground burrow, twisting and turning to avoid hidden stones and tree roots in its path.

  Except in this burrow, predators were digging their own tunnels in an attempt to capture or destroy him.

  In the tactical display that floated across his vision the pursuing ships were represented by glowing red points of light. They were still great distances behind him, roughly equal to the span between planets in a typical system. But then, distances didn't mean much in a pursuit like this. If the enemy ships traveled using technology similar to his own starship, it could mean that finding the right seam in the fabric of space-time could bring them into contact.

  But the more he watched, the more Mik was convinced they were using some other means of propulsion. Their courses seemed more linear, although sometimes one of the ships would apparently disappear for several seconds and then turn up in another sector on his display. They were not slipping through the strangeness of Divine Space.

  In fact, he now saw, they were not actually following his path at all. It was as if they were trying to anticipate his course, flinging ships in his general direction in hopes that some small portion would intersect with the target.

  Generating some kind of wormhole and jumping through them? It would be in keeping with that portal in the administrator's office Talia described.

  As if to confirm his theory, the second pursuing ship winked out of Mik's display.

  When it reappeared, it was much closer than previously.

  Almost immediately the red dot representing the ship seemed to grow in size, and then split. The new dot burst from the ship and raced across the distance toward his own position. It, too, disappeared momentarily and then reformed—almost on top of him.

  Mik felt the gaps in his abilities as he struggled to process the available options. He could sense the higher functions of the ship just beyond his reach.

  He grasped the first solution with the eagerness of a drowning man and forced the ship into a parallel seam of Divine Space. In the span of a heartbeat he was half a light year from his previous position.

  The ship's sensors embedded within him shrieked in alarm as the flare of energy raced along the filaments and folds of Divine Space, forming a great tattered wall of exotic energies behind him.

  Mik perceived it as a flash of spider-webbed light, like the lightning storms that raged in the clouds of the gas giant Lodias.

  Too close.

  Mik surveyed the weapons at his disposal. Tower had loaded into the starship's archives rushed analyses of the enemy ships that had come through the portal in the Lodias system. Even as the god had been repelling the assault he was analyzing and organizing data on the ships. The information was better than nothing, but Mik had no true idea of the composition or defenses of the pursuing ships. Or even what form of life piloted them.

  Best be safe. Make as big a bang as you can.

  His ship had eleven different weapons systems from which to choose. He had reviewed them with Tower back in the underground cavern, and now Mik scanned through the specifications, judging the suitability of each for this skirmish. His amplified connections to the ship allowed him to tear through the technical details in seconds.

  He dismissed ten of the available weapons and focused on one tool in particular.

  They were listed in the inventory as GCP. Gravitic Compression Points.

  Considering what they were supposed to do, he liked the name he came up with better: implosion bomb.

  In theory, the GCPs should crumple surrounding space-time into a compact singularity, dragging in all nearby matter.

  He hesitated for a second. Based on the technical specifications, the resulting implosion would leave that region of space a twisted mess, although just temporarily. His pursuers were in deep space, well beyond the paths of any star or planet, but even so....

  This is a messy weapon, Mik old boy. But better them than me.

  He plotted a trajectory along the creases of Divine Space back to the pursuing ships.

  "Jump through this," he whispered as he released two implosion bombs back along the paths behind him.

  The bombs disappeared, barreling through the tunnels in the universe that opened only for the gods.

  Time was another dimension difficult to calculate from inside the embrace of Divine Space, but it seemed to Mik that almost instantaneously the first of the implosions shredded a region of space behind him. Fundamental energies flared as brightly as a star, writhing and convulsing. The release of the weapon's power had no sooner occurred, however, than its detectable effects began rapidly disappearing, dragging all nearby matter into a collapsing point.

  The size of the affected area horrified him. He imagined the universe screaming. Guilt stabbed through him like a hot blade.

  He nearly disconnected himself from the ship's control network. The demonstration of the pure power at his command made him instinctively recoil.

  Tower, what have you put into my hands? I'm just a man who wants to carry off one of your lovely acolytes, settle into a job fixing things, and hoist a tankard of ale at night. You can have this ship back any time....

  The energetic deployment of the implosion bomb had momentarily caused his tactical display to go blind. When all readouts returned in his vision, Mik found no sign of the closest ship that had been on his tail.

  The second bomb raced on to its target, a glowing threat in the void.

  The other ship, further back, had clearly registered the destruction of its companion. It disappeared and reappeared three times in quick succession. And then it winked out a fourth time, but did not return.

  The second implosion bomb detonated where the other ship had been only a moment before.

  From the greater distance, the convulsive effects on that region of space were not as evident, but Mik knew what was waiting there. He tried to picture the artificial singularity that was even now drawing all nearby matter into its maw.

  He watched intently for several minutes, but the pursuing ship did not return.

  He allowed himself to breathe again.

  Next stop, the king of the gods.

  14

  Memories of Tower

  Archived memory fragment: level 12 access

  Cache: 17645

  Source: Tower

  Relative Date: 2 years pre-elevation

  The press of gravity dragged on his body like iron chains. Very few humans remained on the surface of the Benefactors' giant planet for any length of time. He walked encased inside an enhanced exoskeleton that supported his muscles, along with a bulky breathing apparatus that assisted his belabored lungs.

  It was an environment unsuited for humans, but the Benefactors respected any who would meet with them on their own soil.

  It was well worth the difficulty. The culture and technology of the Benefactors were beautiful to behold. They had engineered their world into an interconnected network of awe-inspiring underground warrens and tunnels. Every planet and asteroid in their solar system was bent toward the use of the Benefactors and that wealth was on full display.

  It was all too easy to lose oneself among the
splendors of this powerful and exotic world, so he must constantly focus on his mission. He is Jensen Severin, a commander in the young Terran defense fleet. The latest human ships are based on his designs, and the task of integrating Benefactor technology into the new spacecraft is his.

  The exoskeleton strained as he walked through the vast underground tunnels. His counterpart ambled beside him with rhythmic, heavy steps. Every surface of the tunnels was shaped in artful fashion, great swirls and ridges that flowed as far as he could see. Indirect lighting glowed from hidden sources, revealing patterns that signified he knew not what.

  The Benefactors were physically massive creatures, each shrouded in a heavy, black carapace. Humans relied on the brilliantly colored stripe patterns that slashed across the carapaces to identify individuals. They walked close to the ground on thick, stumpy legs. Jensen thought they were almost stately in motion, but their minds were anything but sedate.

  Words formed from the gusty intakes and exhalations of air from the Benefactor at his side. It had been a source of great amusement on Earth, but even the name "Benefactors" had been a mangling of their name for themselves, which in its original form was a phonetic puzzle that was nearly unpronounceable to human tongues. To certain ears the windy name sounded like a drawn-out "Benefactors," and since that was also an accurate description of the aliens, the name stuck.

  The translator built into his exoskeleton stumbled to keep up as the great gusts of sound vented from underneath the carapace of his guide. "You must think beyond starships and space stations, friend human. There are other vessels that will carry your power and your will to distant worlds."

  "No doubt, Crall, but we must learn to walk before we can run."