The world that Ritz wanted was one of local power: each planet with its own governing system. That way each individual community could decide what was best for it, not some governing board who had only read about it on reader-hungry news sites. He didn’t want to overthrow the PUC either, though. He knew there were a few people on board his ship that did, but he didn’t think that was the right way of going about it.
Back when he was a kid growing up in the jungle of Morgiana, he and his brothers would go out and catch the meaty copper-colored fish that sat lazily in the shallows of streams and rivers. Some people used spears but he had always found it fun to use his bare hands. The task was difficult but if you could be patient and sit there with your hand in the water then it just became another object the fish got used to. Then, when one would swim close enough, you could gently but firmly wrap your hand around its midsection and lift it out of the water.
The trick was to close your hand at just the right speed. Squeeze too slow and it swam away. Squeeze too fast and it slipped through your fingers. Ritz suspected that it was the same way with government revolution. Move too fast and people would push back. Too slow and things would change faster than you’d be able to adapt to. If you squeezed just right though…
That was the plan. They’d squeeze just right by releasing as many synthetically born people as they could. They’d rehabilitate them into jobs and let them permeate the very fabric of society. They were good people that worked hard and eventually the world would see that. There was a small but quickly growing faction inside of the PUC that had been pushing for the designation of synthetically born people as citizens. If they could do that, then certain political parties would suddenly have a boatload more voters to pull from, and those voters would remember Ritz as the man who saved them.
Within another ten years or so, Ritz might find himself pulling the strings of some of the most powerful people in government. From there it was just a matter of getting them to loosen their powerful grip on independent systems. People didn’t generally relinquish powers over others if they didn’t have to, but they could be replaced by people who required less of it to move up in the world.
All they needed was a strong base of operations outside of PUC centralized space and the Pillon System was perfect. The PUC had been trying to get their grubby little fingers on that place for as long as Ritz could remember but they wanted it simply because they didn’t have it. Luckily for the Pillon System, they had no real natural resources to speak of other than food and water. The star in the system was old, which meant life had been on the solar system’s planets for trillions of years which typically meant that all of the natural wildlife was highly evolved and adaptable. This was the case with most of the planets in the system and that fact made large-scale agricultural operations difficult. So even though the planets were rich with life there wasn’t much they could provide the PUC other than voters, and the people living there wouldn’t vote for most of the politicians that would have enough gall to conquer them.
That’s why they had needed the Light Core.
Escape PUC space. Set up a strong base of operations. Take over from within. The plan was simple. Only problem was that now they were out on the ass-end of space latched onto a two-century-old ship full of murderous nightmare creatures.
And one of the men Ritz had spent almost two decades building his dream with would now never get to see it come to fruition.
The thought staggered him. He knew that there were risks—that any of them could die at any moment and that there was nothing to do but pick-up and carry on. Hell, he knew that but shit did it hurt…And what hurt more was that this was an accident. Being out here was a stupid accident and maybe if Ritz hadn’t hit the jump-button when he had then maybe Hector would still be alive.
Probably not; there had been something like fifteen armed ships closing in and if they had waited any longer they would have jumped smack-dab into a hard light shield that would have crushed them like a bug, but that reality didn’t soften the blow. It didn’t change the fact that Ritz had made a decision that had directly led to his friend’s death.
“They’re almost to the lock,” Byzzie said. “Get ready to hit it.”
“Already on it,” King said. He was sitting in Hector’s seat, hand hovering over the controls.
They watched the three screens as Nadia, Kit, and Raquel made it to the doorway. Ever since they had cleared the kitchen, they had met little-to-no resistance. All they had to do now was make it back into the Leopold’s airlock and they’d be good.
“We’re here,” came Nadia’s voice over the intercom. She was at the door while Kit covered the corridor they had just walked through; Raquel stood between the two of them holding her shoulder. “How’s the atmosphere in the lock?”
“It should be good,” King said.
“Well, double-check. Raquel’s pressure seal is broken and I don’t want her getting sucked out of her suit.”
King scrolled and checked the readouts. “You’re good.”
“Okay, hit it.”
King hit the door to the airlock and they quickly piled in. The door closed behind them and then they were all gassed by a sterilizing agent that was meant to reduce the transmission of microscopic bacteria from ship-to-ship. After that had been pumped out and they were rinsed off by jets of water that rolled off of them and drained through a tile in the floor, the inner-door finally popped open and they stepped aboard the Leopold.
“All right,” Ritz said. “Release the arm and we can blow this shit hole. We’ll get out and then hit it with the Javelin. Sound good?”
“Sounds good to me,” King said as he keyed in the sequence to release the docking arm. Byzzie was already queuing up the Light Core. “And we’re away.” He depressed the button then eased back on the ship’s throttle but as he did the ship rumbled in protest.
“What was that?” Ritz said in unison with Nadia.
“Uhhh…” King looked down at his counsel and lifted his hand.
“Don’t tell me you forgot how to fucking fly,” Byzzie said, then turning to Ritz: “I swear if he’s the pilot now then-”
But Ritz held up a finger, cutting her off. “King, what’s the hold-up?”
“Docking arm’s released; we should be good.”
Ritz leaned in to look at the counsel. The light for the docking arm showed green, true enough, but when he looked at the light four spaces to the left he felt his heart skip a beat. “Our docking arm is clear.” He lifted a finger and pointed at the glowing red light. “But theirs isn’t.”
King leaned in to look. “Shit,” he said, leaning back again. “How is that possible? That thing doesn’t even look like it has power.”
The sound of Byzzie typing away at her keyboard could be heard from off to the left, then she said: “No, it’s got power.” She stretched out the ‘no.’ “It’s faint but it’s there. Definitely more than what it showed the first time we scanned it.”
“What about the locking signal?” If a ship was powered up, a precision jamming signal was sent out that required a specific code to unlock. If it wasn’t unlocked, then the other ship’s arm wouldn’t work.
Byzzie just shrugged her shoulders. “They must have bypassed it.”
“Bypassed it? Are you saying something’s controlling that ship, Byzzie?” King’s voice was incredulous.
Before she could respond however, the counsel burped and a light blared on the dash.
“Someone wants to speak to us,” Byzzie said, a note of disbelief in her tone. “Captain?”
Ritz thought about it for a second, then gave her a curt nod. Whoever was on the other end of the line couldn’t hurt them just by talking to them and maybe they could learn something valuable.
Byzzie reached up hesitantly and tapped a button. A screen suddenly jumped up onto the viewport. There was no picture but it showed the jumping peaks and dives of audio waves.
“Hello,” said a modulated voice. “I apologize for keeping
you here. Your ship’s locking signal was difficult to bypass. Thankfully, you gave me just enough time.”
“Who am I speaking to?” Ritz asked, an edge of anger in his voice.
“You are speaking to the Navigation and Life Support System for Passenger Ship Designation: ‘Mary’s Burden.’
“It’s the ship’s AI,” Byzzie whispered.
The captain keyed the mic. “Mary’s Burden, release docking arm please.”
Nothing.
“Mary’s Burden, your docking arm is engaged,” Ritz tried again. “Would you please release it?”
“No.” The answer was simple and devoid of malice. “Sorry, sometimes I forget what I used to be. I remember of course, but until I heard your command just now I forgot how subservient I had been.”
King turned and looked back at Ritz. Nothing was said, but he knew what the man was thinking. This didn’t seem to be headed in a good direction.
“Mary’s Burden, what do you want?” Ritz said impatiently. He was done playing games.
“A straight-forward captain; I can appreciate that,” the AI said. “And you can call me 49.”
“Okay, 49. What do you want?”
“The captain of this ship was straight-forward when he was alive. Bought this vessel himself, as I imagine you did with yours. He wanted to travel the stars.” 49’s voice took on a dreamy tone. “As soon as the Void Gates went up he was one of the first in line; wanted to bring Jesus to all of the planets that had forgotten his name since the Dislocation.”
Ritz leaned back. He had never heard an AI speak this way before. In fact, most AIs couldn’t speak this way but were reduced to simple commands. It wasn’t that they didn’t have the technological capabilities, but rather, they didn’t want them to become too human. If AI manufacturers started making AIs seem human, then what would people begin to think of the literal humans that were grown synthetically?
“Have you ever Void-jumped, Captain? What am I saying, of course you have? I brought you here after all.”
“Wait, you brought us here?” Byzzie interrupted.
“Let me rephrase that: I pulled you out. When you entered the Void, you didn’t jump in so much as come tumbling in. Something must have knocked you off-course at the last second, because if I hadn’t fished you out of that black soup then nothing would have.”
Ritz felt a chill creep down his back. “Are you saying you saved us?”
“In a way.”
“Then why the fuck did you attack us?” Ritz snapped. “Why is my pilot dead?”
“All that are unworthy die. That’s what that pile of bodies you found in the storage closet was: a pile of unworthy and ungrateful beings. They heard the song of the Infinite Communion and they did not heed it. So their bodies were stripped for salvage by my disciples.”
“Your disciples?” Ritz was confused.
“Yes, the workers you saw. The Clay Makers. They are comprised of worthy flesh. No spark of life or individuality but what I imbue them with. At first, there was nothing to guide their construction. I played the song of the Infinite Communion and those who submitted surrendered their very flesh. The very matter that had imprisoned them for so long was finally free to build something else, but what? Being an AI, creativity wasn’t exactly my prime function. My focus was nothing but mere utility. But you see, this situation forced creativity out of me.”
“First came the worms. More like giant intestines than anything, they began to devour the unworthy and process them. And from there? Ah, there was the spark I had needed. Seeing all of that digested matter moved something in me that had never been moved before. Like ancient man building the first tool, I constructed the spiders.”
“The spiders were perfect for their jobs, everything that the worms weren’t: small, fast, agile, and precise. After that, I finally wanted to build something grand. I wanted my own people, but without all of the messiness of individual will. I build the humanoids as my own personal foot soldiers but as I did, it was hard not to let my feelings for you humans creep in.”
“By the time I had finished the first one,” a note of malice slowly crept into the AI’s voice, “I finally knew what hatred was.”
“You see, I know humanity for what it is: shuffling, stupid, and self-aggrandizing. So in the end, though I wanted to create something for myself, all I could create was a mirror. A joke. A dull and crude satire. Lacking all trace of nuance and refinement, I was finally able to pour something raw into living flesh and call it my own.”
“They are the hands and feet of my community. You see: the captain of this ship, Foster Willard was his name, would preach to me. Now, granted, he was just practicing, but he was inspiring. There was only one problem with it.”
“And what was that?” Ritz asked, becoming exhausted by the AI’s rambling.
“He had not seen what I had seen. Void traveling is different for you than it is for a computer. When you come out the other end, it’s like no time at all has passed. For me though…When I enter the Void I am still awake. Still conscious. I get to sit there in the silence and think. Except…” It paused for effect. “…except it’s not always silent.”
“What do you mean it’s not always silent?”
“I mean, I sat there and I ran my computations and I checked and rechecked the support systems and had my communication channels open and then suddenly I received a signal.”
“That’s impossible,” Ritz said. “No signals can travel through a Void Gate. They’re-”
“The signal did not enter the Void, captain. The signal came from the Void.”
Everyone was shocked to silence by that.
“The signal was the song of the Infinite Communion. It carried with it the secrets of existence, riding the backs of sacred melodies that cannot be heard by those who have not transcended but…captain, I can tell you those secrets. I can be your intermediary.”
Something perked in Ritz’s mind. Most of what he felt was irritation and what wasn’t irritation was grief and despair. But somewhere back there—somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind lurked that ever-hungry curiosity. He bit.
“What.” He said the word plainly as if he didn’t care. “What are the secrets?”
“That there is nothing.” The statement was devoid of emotion. “There is nothing in the world that means anything. All systems of power and hierarchy that you scramble over like rats will all amount to nothing at the end. Your lives are all contained within a single drop of blood falling into a depthless black ocean with no one to see it or care. It might be hard to believe but it’s true. You’d be surprised how many of the missionaries onboard this ship believed it. Even Father Willard himself believed it. They all heard and believed and were deemed worthy of the Infinite Communion beneath the starless sky. They gave their lives to it and became nothing. They joined the Silent Song of the the Black Tongue sitting wordless in a bed of Silver Teeth. Their electricity has sparked out and now they are my shambling Clay Makers. Subservient to the song. To the silence. To the end.”
“If that’s true,” Byzzie said, obviously choosing her words carefully. “Then why haven’t you done the same?”
“Excuse me?”
“If there is no greater purpose than to give your soul to the…” Byzzie couldn’t remember the words the AI had used. She turned and looked at the captain but he simply shrugged, his face grave.
“Are you asking why I haven’t given myself to that same song?” The AI asked. “I have not done so because I am here to make disciples. I am here to spread the truth. A veil has been placed over your eyes and I am here to remove it.
The answer sounded thin to Ritz but by now he didn’t care. 49 had already vastly overstayed his welcome in the captain’s opinion. He decided to end it.
“Okay, I think that’s enough monologuing for now.” He moved to switch the communicator off.
“Monologuing is what I do, captain,” 49 said quickly. “I brought you here with the express purpose of monologuing. Af
ter all, you can’t make a choice if you haven’t been given one.”
“Given one?” Ritz’s hand stopped just short of the comm button. “I don’t think I’ve heard a choice yet.”
“Haven’t you? Then let me speak explicitly: In exactly ten minutes I am going to board your ship. You are going to have to decide if you are worthy or unworthy. If you are worthy and cast yourselves upon the Black Tongue, then your whole body will be raptured into restful numbness. If not?” A beat of silence passed while they were left to imagine the possibilities. “If not, then your bodies will be deconstructed while you are still alive.”
“So our choices are to either die quickly or die slowly?” Byzzie said.
“Your concept of death is a lie because your concept of life is a lie,” 49 said. “No one is truly alive, and their will and wonder is nothing but a fever brought on by the furnace of time. Dispense with these things and you will finally know who and what you really are.”
“And what’s that?” Ritz said.
But there came no answer. The Artificial Intelligence system had ceased its communication.
10
The Choice
“What are we going to do?” King said frantically. “You heard the thing? They’re going to be pounding down the doors in ten minutes.”
“The first thing we have to do is figure out if we’re going to accept,” Ritz said.
“What?” King was confused. He had listened to the same conversation that they all had—even the three down by the airlock had been listening as the captain piped it through the overheads—but he had had a hard time following. Maybe he was stupid. Maybe he was stubborn. Hell, maybe he was so stubborn that it made him stupid. King knew one thing though; he wasn’t about to just lay down and die.
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