PLEASE PROCEED.
His internal voice repeated; once again, not of his own choosing. It sounded disjointed, almost scrambled…like the sound of a radio signal that hadn’t quite been squelched. Or a mixture of his own voice and that of a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica, which he’d watched as a kid. But it sounded weaker.
“…the hell is going on?” he whispered, taking another cautious step forward. He paused, waited a beat, then took another. The foreign thoughts did not return. “Hello?” he asked. His voice reverberated down the endless corridor, but nothing answered back.
Satisfied no one was going to reply, he continued his trek down the corridor. His footfalls were eerily silent as he marched. His thick leather soles inexplicably quiet in a place that in other circumstances should have acted as an echo chamber.
STOP.
The internal voice directed him again. King complied and glanced around. As far as he could tell, the marbled black walls to his right and left were exactly the same as the seeming miles of wall he’d just passed. Furthermore, from what he could tell, the corridor still stretched indefinitely ahead, though he began to detect the slightest trace of a right-hand curve. There was no discernable reason for him to stop at this point.
There was a sudden hiss to his right. He turned his attention in that direction, just in time to see a circlet of the holographic metal materialize directly out of the wall. Playing a hunch, King withdrew his disc and placed it inside the newly revealed ring and was rewarded by a ripple in the wall that shimmered and swirled until another liquid-like doorway formed before his eyes.
Unlike the hatch he’d slipped through on the far side of the pyramid, this was a full-sized door, proportioned perfectly to allow King entry. Not full-sized, he thought wryly. ‘King-sized’ is more like it.
“So I suppose you expect me to go in there?” King said, pointing to the door. “Just like that? I have no idea what’s on the other side…what dangers I could be stepping into…and you just expect me to trust you enough to comply?”
King wasn’t certain how he felt about exploring a place that could conjure perfectly customized doors out of solid marble at will. He wasn’t overly fond of the idea of blindly running through the high-tech rat maze, whether Daniel thought it was essential or not. After all, now that he was inside, why wasn’t he just searching for the device and destroying it before it could be a danger to anyone?
THAT WOULD BE UNWISE.
The voice inside his head was laced with just a hint of a threat. It didn’t like his alternative idea.
“Why?” he shouted, unnerved that his voice cast utterly no echo now. “What would happen if I did destroy it?”
THAT WOULD BE UNWISE.
King clenched his fists, frustration building. He considered the possibility that he was simply arguing with his own subconscious, but deep down he knew the truth. Something inside this facility had hacked into his brainwaves and was emitting thoughts directly into his mind.
“Enough is enough. This stops now,” King growled, before hefting the spear into a defensive posture and stepping through the door.
22
The Ruined City of Eridu, Above Ground
Only a handful of slaves, a single driver and an injured soldier noticed the soft rumble of the earth the moment King entered the liquid door underneath the pyramid. Even fewer noticed the instant drop in temperature by nearly ten degrees or the panicked exodus of birds that fled the safety of their perches to parts unknown.
The slow-moving plumes of greenish-blue gas that seeped casually up from the sand in various places throughout the desolate city had been noticed only by one soldier, who had wandered off to a secluded spot to relieve himself. As he stood there, looking down at his business, the puffs of the strange vapor had drifted up. He’d stopped immediately, repelled by the putrid stench. He had turned to report the strange occurrence to his superiors, but the words never escaped his lips. He’d collapsed to the ground within seconds, seized by a hacking cough. He’d wheezed pitifully for breath that would never come and eventually perished.
That was five hours ago, and his body had yet to be discovered. Even if it had been, no one would have paid it much mind. It would have simply been one more body among many in the midst of the violent struggle that now raged in the Eridu valley.
King’s estimate of Sereb-Meloch’s arrival had been wrong. They had arrived just before dawn with a great shout and a blaring of trumpets that rallied the warriors to battle. They’d attacked without warning, dispatching Nebuchadnezzar’s scouts before the men could report back of the oncoming army and the two nightmare creatures under their control. Though Nebuchadnezzar’s forces had the superior skill and weaponry, they were overwhelmingly outnumbered. With the aid of the Girtablilu, they were also hopelessly outmatched.
So no one noticed as the winds whipped up. Fewer still cared about the sudden electrical storm that sizzled the air with the smell of ozone. There was a battle to be won and no one on either side suspected that the earth itself would bring about their doom.
No one, that is, except for the cloaked, bent form of an old man who had walked two horses casually through the field of battle as if on a noonday stroll.
23
King stepped into some sort of laboratory space. The black-gray marble walls had given way to the stark contrast of antiseptic white. The walls, floor and ceiling were all made of the same foreign material. The lights still pulsed with the same soft blue glow, though its source was not as evident as it had been out in the corridor.
Spear still in hand, King glanced around the room, ready for any surprises that might be lurking nearby.
Finding nothing, he reached out toward the metal circlet beside the door and willed the disc to return. It complied immediately, and the liquid portal solidified once more into a wall. Pocketing the disc, he turned to survey the room more closely. Like everything else he’d encountered since entering the facility—he was still reluctant to call it a ship—the chamber was massive, appearing to be two hundred feet square with a twenty foot high ceiling. The wall space around the entire room was bare. No shelving, tables, or work areas of any kind. But the center of the lab...
King gawked at the enormous glass tubes that covered most of the room. They were well over five foot in diameter and reached from floor to ceiling. Filled with some thick, clear liquid, each of the tubes contained shapes. Creatures of varying size and morphology floated inside each of them. A few—nearly two dozen by King’s count—were very familiar to him. The Girtablilu. The others were completely alien to him.
They look like some sort of stasis chambers. Cryogenics or some other form of suspended animation, he thought, as he made his way through the maze of tubes, slowly processing all he was seeing. As he passed each tube, a flicker of light would catch his eye, resolving into a holographic screen displaying what he guessed were the occupant’s vital signs, EKGs and other statistical data. He gawked at one tube after another, trying to make sense of the data. Many of the creatures appeared to be dead, their remains preserved forever within the viscous substance encasing them. Of the twenty-four creatures that resembled Tiamba and Namtar, sixteen remained alive. The ratio proved true for the other species confined to the tubes. Close to half were dead.
King rounded a table to discover a stasis chamber unlike all the rest. Instead of standing upright, this one hovered horizontally, two and a half feet off the floor. It wasn’t made of glass either, but appeared to be constructed of the same holographic-like metal of the disc and door-locking mechanisms. It looked more like a streamlined sensory deprivation chamber. Or a space coffin, he thought.
A few other space coffins were scattered around this section of the lab, but from his vantage point, they all appeared to live up to King’s pet name for them. They had all flatlined. Only the holographic readout on the unit directly in front of him pulsed with activity.
He stood his ground, nearly three feet away from this new discovery. Something about it d
idn’t sit right with him. There was something…
APPROACH.
The mechanical echo of his internal voice reverberated inside his head. King suspected that whatever lay inside the horizontal tube was what had been invading his mind. And he didn’t like it one bit.
“I don’t think so,” King said, raising his spear defensively.
APPROACH.
He turned to the tubes containing the Girtablilu, determined to stay on task. The scorpion men were why he’d come…to raise an army. Daniel had inexplicably believed they would assist him, and King couldn’t help but trust the man, based on Daniel’s legendary reputation alone. Who was he to question a prophet of God?
Shaking his head, he returned to the nearest creature resembling Tiamba and examined the holographic screen in more detail. In his time, he’d seen his share of bio-medical readouts. Had a fair understanding of what most of the jagged and wiggly lines streaking across represented. Heart rate. Oxygen levels…well, maybe not oxygen, but whatever particular gas this species needed to nourish the brain. He read, and comprehended most of the data, but the line he’d believed to be the EEG readout was beyond anything he’d seen before.
The EEG showed enhanced cerebral activity. Even stranger, the creature’s gamma wave, normally used to process multiple stimuli simultaneously, was off the charts. This should have been impossible, given that the subject appeared to be unconscious and in a state of suspended animation. For the gamma waves to be so active, the creature would not only need to be conscious, but in a highly agitated state with loads of stimuli coming at it in rapid succession.
As he glanced around from one suspension tube to the next, he discovered the EEGs to be one hundred percent identical. Not just similar. Not close. They were completely identical with every spike and dip. If King was reading them correctly, each of the Girtablilu shared the exact same neurological patterns, which could only happen if they were…
A HIVE MIND, said the voice in his head.
King wheeled around to glare at the horizontal tube. “Stay out of my head!” he shouted, but the voice ignored him.
APPROACH.
“And why the hell should I?”
FOR ANSWERS YOU SEEK. KKIIINNNGGG.
It was all he could do to not show surprise at the mention of his callsign. Of course, the Girtablilu apparently knew who he was. And if the Voice was correct, they also shared a hive mind. A collective consciousness. What one of them knew, they apparently all knew. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that the Voice knew his name as well. For now, he decided, he wouldn’t take the bait. “That’s not good enough. I think I’ll take my cha…”
THE LAND ABOVE IS ALREADY DYING. A BATTLE RAGES. MY HIGH PRIEST HAS ARRIVED. I WILL SET THE WORLD ABLAZE IF YOU DO NOT APPROACH.
King froze. Sereb-Meloch was already here? How long had he been searching the hallways? And what did the Voice mean by ‘the land above is already dying’? More questions, King supposed, that the speaker inside his mind was offering to answer for him—if he complied.
He glanced at the horizontal tube, then back at the Girtablilu.
FORGET MY CHILDREN. THEY CANNOT ASSIST YOU. ONLY I AM CAPABLE OF THAT.
Reluctantly, King stepped forward. “And who, exactly, are you?” he asked, as he slowly approached. The palms of his hands sweated against the smooth wood of the spear.
THE GREAT GODDESS. THE CREATOR OF ALL THAT IS, was its cold reply. I AM TIAMAT.
King slammed the spearhead down on the tube, eliciting a raucous echo throughout the lab. “I said stay out of my head!” he growled. Maybe not the wisest move on his part, but certainly satisfying.
“Is this better?” came a disembodied electronic voice. The tinny quality to it enhanced the perception of some type of science fiction android in King’s imagination. But it wasn’t using his mind this time. He glanced around, but couldn’t identify the source.
“Is this better?” the voice repeated.
There is nothing good about me talking to an immortal goddess with the power to create and destroy worlds, he thought. “Yes. As long as you stop manipulating my thoughts, we’ll be just fine.” He stepped closer to the ten-foot-long, high tech sarcophagus. “Now, for the question we’ve all been waiting for…aren’t you a little short for a Tiamat?” When there was no response to his quip, he added, “Look, what exactly do you want from me?”
There was a squeal of electric static, then the thing calling itself Tiamat spoke. The answer chilled King to the core.
“Freedom.”
24
King drew closer to the sarcophagus. He really wished it had been made of glass like the others. His curiosity about the creature inside was getting the better of him. But if the ship harbored the device he believed it did, there was no way he could consider releasing the creature. He let his hand hover over the sarcophagus’s surface, sweeping it back and forth as if trying to feel any evil that might emanate from within. Realizing what he was doing—and remembering how the other things in the facility responded to thought or gesture—he pulled his hand back with a snap.
“Answers first,” he said, trying to be as non-committal as possible. “How were you projecting your thoughts into my head?”
“Why is that important?”
“Because I’d like to understand it before I do anything. I’d like to know if I can trust my own decisions or if you can compel me to action.”
“And you will believe what I tell you?”
That’s a good point, he thought.
“You said you’d provide answers. This will be a start in that direction.” He also knew he was running out of time. Answers might have to take a backseat. If Tiamat was telling the truth, all hell was breaking loose topside. But obtaining some of his answers might be the first step in figuring out how to stop the device.
“First, place your hand against the widest end of my containment unit,” the voice echoed in the chamber.
“Not a chance. Answer the question.”
There was a hiss of static, followed by what sounded like a word. King couldn’t make out what was said. Finally, it spoke again. “The chamber will not open. It will merely reveal a window through which we can see each other. Much better to communicate face-to-face.”
King hesitated. Considered the request, then thought better of it. “Answer my question.”
There was another pause, then something that distinctly sounded like a sigh. “Before I answer, let me be clear. I know what you are. I know where you are from. Because of that, I will dispense with treating you the same as I would the primitives of this era.”
“Sounds smart,” King said. Suddenly, his heart skipped against his chest. The spear was no longer in his hand. He glanced around and found it leaning against the wall, near the closest suspension tube holding one of the scorpion men.
When did I do that? he wondered. But before he had time to contemplate it fully, the creature known as Tiamat spoke again.
“To answer your question,” the voice echoed in the chamber, “The Girtablilu communicate by a mixture of body language, pheromones and telepathy. We designed them this way, to be more effective warriors.”
Warriors, King thought, realizing the implications. “You have enemies...out there.”
“The universe is vast.” The Voice paused. “And our race had lost the ability to physically contend with others we encountered, so we engineered a species better suited to combat. To allow instant coordination and strategic implementation, we created them with a hive mind. What one knows, they all know. What one feels, they all feel.”
Having suffered enough deaths to feed a small war, King could only imagine the torture such a hive existence would be. When one of them died, they all experienced it. Still, he could understand the wisdom in such an engineering decision, barbaric though it might be.
“Naturally, my species does not communicate the same way,” it said. “To issue commands and ensure total control over the Girtablilus, we developed technology to help pr
oject our thoughts to them…to help guide them.”
“That’s where I have a problem,” King said. It was nearly a growl. “Control.”
“These are not sentient beings as you know them, Jack Sigler,” Tiamat said. “They do not process thought the same as our two species do. They are more primal. More instinctive. The hive mind functions like a genetically coded instructional batch file. They were bred for a specific purpose. They are born fully prepared on a genetic level to fight and obey. Any other thoughts they may have are more akin to emotions. Instincts. Passions. Our mental invasion into their consciousness merely suggests activity direction. We do not impose our will on them. We simply tweak their primitive, baser instincts.”
“Their minds may be primitive, but somehow they were able to recognize me. They knew who I was,” King argued. “They knew my callsign. They remembered me. How do you explain that?”
“That,” the creature paused, as if collecting its thoughts, “is perplexing to me as well. They most definitely knew you, though I’ve not been able to discern just how. It was their knowledge that allowed me to learn of you as well.”
And there it is, King thought. It just answered my most important questions. The creature could not only implant its thoughts for communicative purposes, it could control others by inserting suggestions into a target’s subconscious. More than that, it could…
YES, JACK SIGLER, the Voice was inside his head again. THE TECHNOLOGY ALSO ALLOWS ME TO ‘READ YOUR THOUGHTS’ AS YOU DESCRIBE IT. AMONG A MYRIAD OF OTHER USEFUL THINGS.
An explosive hiss of air filled the room. Surprised, King jerked back, pulling his hand away from the sarcophagus lid. Sometime during the conversation, completely unaware of what he was doing, he had placed the medallion into a hidden slot and activated the thing’s release mechanism.
Jack Sigler Continuum 1: Guardian Page 11