‘And every effort will be made to achieve this. But, genesis human, please consider the nature of the weapons that are going to be deployed – by both sides. Somewhere in the gateway system are mechanisms for breaking apart entire planets.’
‘In the past,’ Dellian said.
‘Yes. But we cannot ignore the possibility that they still exist. The sheer number of Deliverance and Resolution ships available to deploy against our armada means that the destructive energies to be unleashed are phenomenal. And that is just on the Olyix side. We are bringing a neutron star to this battlefield to fire into their star. There will be a nova – probably a supernova. Our losses will be significant. You must prepare yourself for casualties.’
‘Casualties, yes. Failure, no.’
‘We will develop the best possible strategy. There are still too many unknowns to guarantee victory. I’m sorry, but this is not a war that will result in absolutes. Like the Saints, we will endeavour all we have to accomplish the mission. That is all our ancestors can ask of us: that we tried our best. And this is the best, our omega.’
‘We know,’ Dellian said before Yirella could start arguing. He knew her. ‘And we stand with you. All the squads do.’
‘Appreciate that, Dellian,’ Ainsley said. ‘So let’s get that new congress of determination started, shall we?’
Saints
Olyix Enclave
Callum took the bowl of salmon and asparagus risotto out of the food printer’s base slot and put it in the microwave that he set for ninety seconds. While that was heating up he waited for the printer to finish conjuring up his garlic bread. The microwave pinged, and he opened the door to inhale the meal’s aroma. Faint traces of vapour were rising off the glistening rice. It smelt wonderful –
Bloody hell!
‘Hey, those sensing cells on the pipe trunk leaves outside, are they olfactory along with everything else?’ he asked urgently.
Jessika and Yuri were slouched on their rock shelves, receiving the dream that was the onemind’s thoughtstream. Kandara and Alik were sitting together, he with a beer, she sipping a white wine. They all looked at Callum.
‘Well?’ he asked, one hand gesturing to the steaming bowl. ‘Does the onemind have a sense of smell inside the Salvation?’
Jessika glanced at the risotto and frowned. ‘There are some leaves budding off the trunks that are sensitive to atmospheric composition. I wouldn’t call it smell, exactly. The ability is used to detect if there’s an imbalance in the gas mix – too much carbon dioxide building up, that kind of thing.’
Callum stared down at his risotto suspiciously. ‘Yeah, but the molecules this is giving off have a terrestrial signature, right? The onemind must have a record of them.’
Now everyone was looking at Jessika. ‘Possibly,’ she admitted. ‘I’m not sure about the sensitivity levels, mind.’
‘If we’re cooking food in here for a couple of years, there’s damn well going to be a build-up of smells, that’s for sure,’ Callum said. ‘They’ll drift into the corridor outside. Food smells always do. I remember walking through Edinburgh late on Saturday nights.’
‘What are you saying, man?’ Alik asked. He held up his beer. ‘I have to give this up?’
Callum shrugged. ‘Water is neutral.’
‘Fuck that!’
‘Cold food is less effervescent,’ Kandara said thoughtfully.
‘Effervescent?’ Alik sounded astonished.
‘Evaporation. Hot food gives off more odour.’
‘You’re saying we eat goddamn cold sandwiches for ten years?’
‘Callum may have a point,’ Jessika said.
‘Je-zus H Christ almighty. No fucking way.’
The food printer flashed a ready light, and the garlic bread slid out of the slot. Callum gave it a guilty look.
‘Garlic is quite strong,’ Yuri said. ‘Worse if you heat it.’
Callum badly wanted to glare at Yuri, who was clearly channelling the devil at peak temptation. But that would’ve given Yuri a win.
‘Seriously, cold food?’ Alik asked. ‘What about – aww, crap – coffee? No! Come on, man.’
Kandara nodded sagely. ‘I think Callum may be right. We shouldn’t take the risk.’
‘I am not spending what’s left of my life drinking . . .’ Alik shouted – then took a breath and spoke quietly. ‘Water.’
‘Vodka has little effervescence,’ Yuri said with low amusement. ‘And is best served iced in the correct Russian way. Even fewer stray molecules given off that way.’
Alik gave a cry of disgust, throwing his hands up.
Callum awarded the garlic bread a last resentful gaze and dropped it in the toilet pan. The flush swirled it away into the atomizer unit at the bottom of the nutrient formulator. At least there was nothing he could do about the risotto now but eat it.
‘The G8Turing should be able to suggest a decent low-emissive menu for us,’ Kandara said.
‘Wait.’ Jessika held up a hand. ‘There’s another ship arrived: the Liberation from Ignorance.’
Startled, Callum’s limbs locked in an idiot pose, fully laden fork just centimetres in front of his open mouth. ‘At the gas giant?’
‘No. Into the enclave. It just came through the gateway. I can feel its thoughts being unified within the fullmind. Oh, shit!’
‘What?’ Yuri asked sharply.
‘They sent a . . . they called it a Reconciliation fleet, to Earth. The Liberation from Ignorance is the first to come back. It’s full.’
‘Full?’ Callum said. He knew what she meant, but still . . .
‘Of cocoons.’
‘Oh, Christ, no. How can that be? We’ve only been here – Oh. Right. Slowtime. It must have been years outside.’
‘Couple of decades, at least,’ Kandara said. ‘More when you take the wormhole flight time to Sol and back. Say thirty.’
‘We’ve not been in the enclave two full days yet,’ Alik protested.
She directed a mocking smile his way. ‘Really slow time.’
‘What happened?’ Yuri asked.
‘Earth fell,’ Jessika said. ‘They sent in thousands of Resolution ships. They broke the city shields. They cocooned everyone left on the planet. Billions of us. Billions!’
‘What about the settled worlds?’ Alik asked.
‘The Liberation from Ignorance feels sad, sort of incomplete,’ Jessika said. ‘Our terraformed worlds were practically deserted when the Olyix arrived. The exodus habitats had all portalled out, and the Olyix couldn’t find out where.’
‘Thank God for that,’ Callum said. ‘They did it. They got out across the galaxy. There’s still hope.’ Somehow he was wiping moisture from his eyes, not knowing how it got there. The kids are safe. Damn, they’ll be old by now; the grandkids will probably have children of their own. At this rate it won’t be much longer – not even a week – and they’ll have lived more years than me. And they’ll never know I’m still alive, that we made it.
‘That went better than I expected,’ Yuri said. ‘They got out – Emilja and the Zangaris, even Soćko, presumably. They know what they have to do. We got the easy assignment, now.’
‘Easy?’ Alik challenged.
‘Sit and wait,’ Callum said. ‘And work out how to call the human armada. When it comes.’
*
Callum had a fitful sleep that night. In his short, vivid dream he walked through night-time Edinburgh, back in the good old days, him and his pals, making their way to someone’s flat after the pubs had closed. The paved clear routes were slick with a cold rain washing down from the Scottish Highlands, reflecting jagged streaks of streetlighting and hologram ads. Then the lights went out one by one, leaving him alone, staggering through a canyon of stone buildings, their walls shifting out of alignment. There was some light remaining in the dwindling city: the windows of kebab shops and chippies and burger joints and pizzerias and noodle bars. People were crammed inside; elements of grills and ovens glared lava-orange, casti
ng occult glows over drawn faces – faces that were losing their features, melting away to ovals of flesh. And the fat smoke rose from charring food, billowing up into the extractor fans. Jets of rank smog flooded out across the street, their stench unavoidable. And in the gutters, rodent noses twitched behind the bars of the drains, pushing up towards the source –
‘Cal?’
He cried out as the dream juddered away. Jessika’s face was poised above him, concern on her gentle features. ‘You were crying out in your sleep,’ she explained. ‘Bad dream?’
‘Something like that. What time is it?’ He unzipped the side of his sleeping bag. Cool air slithered over him. I need a thicker sleeping bag.
‘Five in the morning, on the ship’s time we’re keeping.’
‘Uh, right. Thanks. And sorry.’ The light in the cavern was a minimal glimmer, allowing the shadows to loom large, compressing his world still further. Just like in the nightmare.
‘The G8Turing has reconstituted the formula for milk,’ she said. ‘It’s less of an aerosol with its molecules now. I can warm some for you, if you like.’
Warm milk. What am I, five? Bloody hell. Maybe Alik is right; some sacrifices are too great. Best to go out in a vapour plume of decent Scotch. ‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’ He rubbed his hands together before cupping them and blowing hard on his dry palms. ‘I’m cold.’
‘Get used to it,’ she said as she fussed around the food printer.
‘Damn. This isn’t how I thought it would end. I was hoping for the bang, not the whimper.’
She put a mug in the microwave. ‘There’s another ship arrived.’
‘Christ, now what?’
‘It’s called the Refuge of Hope, and it’s scooped up humans from the exodus. I think they came from two new planets.’
‘Shit. The exodus? Man, that’s bad. They’re hunting us, then?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry, but it was inevitable. They are fanatics.’
‘Damn, I wonder who it was.’
‘I can try and filter a little deeper.’
Callum took the mug she was offering him. ‘Thanks.’ The liquid tasted of nothing: warm white water.
‘There is one thing that the fullmind is examining in a primary consciousness routine,’ she said. ‘They’re concerned. They know about the exodus and what its goals are.’
‘The exodus goals? You mean, that humans are supposed to be building up our military strength to fight back?’
‘Yes.’ She hesitated. ‘And more.’
‘More?’
‘They must have interrogated people, extracted memories directly from their brains. The Olyix know who we are. The five of us are featuring pretty heavily in the fullmind’s thoughtstream.’
Gox Quint
Salvation of Life
Nullifying the neuralstratum’s perception in the hangar is an easy accomplishment, a few simple misdirections in the autonomous routines of the local nexus. I don’t enjoy concealing my activities from the onemind, but I don’t have a choice; the onemind is mistaken about its priorities. Those bastard humans are still alive in here somewhere, so I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do.
Everything that’s happening is just more proof I’m right. I’m amassing the information brought to us by the redoubtable Refuge of Hope, who carries so many of this vile human race. Didn’t expect that, did you, you little shits? Didn’t expect us to come chasing you across lightyears and centuries. We’ve seen it all before, you know, all the treachery and villainy overrated simians like you represent. We know how to deal with you.
You will be brought to account for yourselves at the end of time. There is no escaping that noble destiny we are charged to deliver.
I mean, did you really think your pitiful little brains could outsmart us, even with those fucking Neána scum pushing you, lying to you, giving you false hope and better technology they probably stole from us or the Katos? No, my deluded friends. That’s not how this universe works. Not at all.
And how dumb was that plan, anyway? Run away and breed like deviant rats until there are enough of you to swarm our enclave? Have you no intelligence at all; can you not even try to imagine what we have amassed to defend ourselves? We have been shepherding and saving other forlorn, misguided races since before your squalid zero-sentient ancestors even learned how to use fire.
So you sneaked your way on board? So fucking what, assholes? Nobody’s ever going to hear your Signal. Not over that distance. You lost.
And now all I need to do is finish my one final clean-up assignment. Because I’m going to find you, no matter how long it takes. I am going to kick your loathsome –
–
Oh. Interesting. That’s it? That’s them? The best of the best? You call them saints now? Really? Them? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I’ve had bodies that are already dead and rotting who would be a better choice.
Still, that means you’re mine now; I fucking own you. And I’ll enjoy every second of it. I might even hook into the local environment biostructure plexus to smell your fear when I find you. And, yeah, I know I should hand you over for a cosy little suspension in the limbo ships until we reach the end of time. But, hey, accidents happen, and your bodies are feeble; they damage easily in a fight. I know that. Do I ever! I’m good at it, too.
See, the trick to hunting terrestrial animals is putting yourself in their position, adopting their mindset, understanding their motivations. Once you are centred in that place, their options become clear to you and their moves easy to anticipate.
When I draw out the memory of the stolen transport ship from the neuralstratum, I know the exact position it rested on the floor. I stand where the nose was, pointing towards the wall. I feel it, build the memory into a solid vision. I am the transport ship. They move inside me. They skulk. Shuffle from day to day. Their primitive brains spark dully as they formulate their pitiful plans.
Everything the humans did on the day they launched their S-Day attack against us was designed to put that one ship on board the Salvation of Life. Big deal. It took everything you had, cost every last wattdollar – your entire output from every industrial station, all your dirty political deals, just to place five people here in this very hangar.
And here they remain – somewhere close. Don’t you? I know it, even if the Salvation of Life won’t acknowledge that. That onemind is too far up its high and mighty ass to listen to me.
Well, I know you now. Saints.
Yuri Alster, a has-been secret policeman and alcoholic miserabilist incapable of relating to another human.
FBI senior special detective Alik Monday. Professional ass-licker to politicians, the most corrupt high-lever fixer you can get.
Callum Hepburn, disgraced engineer, weakling and moral coward, Emilja Jurich’s court eunuch.
Jessika Mye. Neána construct. Not even alive by any definition.
And Kandara Martinez. Oh, Kandara, you think you’re tough, don’t you? Ms Virtue, a black-ops illegal murderer of gangstas. So badly damaged by your parents’ death, your ruined mind has to be controlled and calmed by drugs, lest your own fury burn you up.
I will find you, Kandara. I promise I will find you and finish what you and I started on Verby. I’m going to remind you what your kind used to call me back then when I moved among you. It was a good name, too, because every human knows, Cancer always gets you in the end, bitch.
Morgan
Olyix Sensor Station
The day before the armada’s departure, Yirella visited Immanueel in their centrex. She walked in cautiously, anxious as always not to skid on the glossy floor. The shapes that made up the hemispherical wall seemed different somehow, more rounded this time, a little less mechanical. As before, she tried to work out which was Immanueel’s big biophysical body. For some reason, her pattern recognition was poor today.
‘Are you well?’ Immanueel’s voice asked.
Yirella turned full circle, trying to get a lock on where they might be. The little lights th
at slid along the cracks were of no help. ‘Doing okay, like always. Nervous that we’re about to go kick Olyix butt.’
A chortle echoed lightly around the chamber. ‘Methinks you have been spending too much time with Ainsley.’
‘You’re probably right. I like his confidence. I find it soothing.’
‘Some say confidence. Others, ego.’
‘Yeah, but think what he’s accomplished in his life. He was born in the twenty-first century, for Saints’ sake. He created the Connexion Corp, helped Emilja push through the exodus. And here he still is, a warship that makes even you guys edgy.’
‘Born rich, and leveraged his way into exploiting portal technology. Then he bought politicians. Connexion was the pioneer when it came to establishing rock-squatter asteroids as tax havens, which helped maintain Universal culture across Sol.’
‘Humans are not born equal; we all have different abilities. His we really need right now, like the Juloss civilization needed me and the boys.’
‘I acknowledge the necessity of difference among us, and encourage it. If it were a currency, every human would have been rich since the dawn of our history.’
She caught a movement. One of the wall shapes was moving slightly faster than the others, its profile changing, the light beads sliding away from it. ‘I came to ask if you had pulled anything else out of the quint brains. Specifically, the history of the enclave star system?’
‘Ah. Our quest to find the origin of the tachyon message? Well, I have good news: it proceeds apace. The enclave system is indeed the home star of the Olyix. Alas, I could not determine how long ago they heard the message from whatever entity they named the God at the End of Time. However, the Olyix do appear to have been on their crusade for over two million years.’
‘Saints! They must be close to invincible by now. The Angelis fleet was running to another galaxy. Even the Katos were avoiding direct confrontation. Does that make us the dumb ones?’
The Saints of Salvation [British Ed.] Page 36