Then the signal from the hyperspace scanner cut out. A moment later a dark object flew up out of the well, followed by another two, no, three, outriders of the Legion. They slowed to circle the radiant cone below the cloud cover. The Knight’s few remaining static sensors and mobile probes sent back images of three black-carapaced cyborgs bristling with hooked spines, their effectuators equipped with elaborate cutters, drills and pincers. The Knight couldn’t be sure about their type but he guessed that they might be modified shock-scouts. Their hull markings were basic white-on-black yet the characters were unfamiliar to him. That did not prevent him from sending a welcome signal.
There was no reply, but the three outriders stopped circling and swooped down in his direction. The closer they came, the more he saw how patched and repaired they were, the black colour masking mendings made with unmatched materials. They drew near, hovering, all three spread out.
>Relic< said one.
>Antique< said another.
>A behinder< said the third, who went on >Speak, old one … speak your oldness<
the Knight said, now uneasy.
>Great Legion needs only one leader< the third outrider said >the Great King!<
Below, more Legion cyborgs had been emerging and spiralling upwards. The Knight noticed that the warpwell had expanded and that part of its rim now overhung the rock flanks of what remained of Giant’s Shoulder. Some strange force, however, was distorting the surrounding rock and earth, compacting the polychromatic supporting mass that melded the wider well into the surrounding stone. Then he realised why the warpwell had grown when he saw what was rising out of it. It was nothing less than an amalgamation of hundreds, probably thousands of Legion cyborgs, their fused carapaces clearly visible beneath the crisscross webbing of welded metal spars and rods. Roughly 80 metres across and perhaps 120 long, it had a curve-backed profile and was ringed with heavy weapon barrels, muzzles and launcher ports.
The Knight was assailed by despair even as his thoughts spun with speculation. Confinement in the crushing, lightless cold of that hyperspace prison for millennia must have put the Legion of Avatars under horrific pressure. In the end, the principles of convergence could not withstand the savage demands of that grim captivity – who knows what cycles of conflict and adaptation they went through to reach this point?
>Behold Great King< said the third cyborg. >Enemies all around, enemies above, enemies below. This world will be eaten, other worlds of legend will be eaten. Stars of legend will burn, will make the night into day for ever< It moved in the Knight’s direction, drill-tipped tentacles outstretched. >You are old one, you are old parts! Be thankful, your thinking flesh will be eaten by Great King<
And it attacked, lunging forward. The Knight destroyed it with the beam cannons that were fitted to his underhull. Undeterred, the other two cyborgs rushed him in a pincer movement while howling gibberish over the comm channel. Behind them, a swarm of about thirty peeled off from the thousands now swirling about the Great King and swooped towards him.
Feeling the weight of an immense sadness, he dealt with the other two and prepared to meet the oncoming madness, and his doom.
32
ROBERT
From the wide misty valley where Robert escaped being crushed by the gargantuan, half-seen wagon, they climbed flights of ancient, cracked stairs to a grassy plateau. In the distance mountains reared like a barrier while much closer a semi-overgrown paved path led from the head of the stairs off to the left in a rising incline, disappearing into hilly woods.
‘Do you hear that?’ said Reski Emantes, hovering on near-silent rotors.
‘No, I … wait … ’ Robert cocked his head, trying to scan with his ears. ‘Hmm, yes, faintly.’ Barely audible, he could just make out a regular thudding.
‘Coming from along that pathway, as well.’ The drone tilted and glided along at head height. Robert shrugged and followed.
Only minutes after crossing into the trees, the paved path faded away in the undergrowth.
‘Damn, but I was walking on it just moments ago,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to backtrack … ’
‘Normally I would have something devastatingly cutting to say on the subject of Human senses,’ the drone said. ‘But it would appear that my own are proving equally feeble.’
Robert gave the drone a considering look. After they were separated at the river, Reski Emantes had reappeared to rescue him from the clutches of grotesque Vor-like humanoids. The drone now looked as if it had been remodelled with pre-atomic-age materials and techniques. Riveted seams, propellers keeping it aloft rather than suspensors, and a spring-loaded bolt-caster rather than a multi-targetable beam weapon.
‘Surely we can deduce a reasonable direction from the way we came,’ he said.
‘If the environment wasn’t the mutable thoughtscape of an ancient and powerful entity,’ the drone said, ‘that would be a reasonable suggestion.’
‘Well, look,’ he said, pointing at a bushy rise a dozen paces away. ‘We came over that higher ground which we reached by following the path so we should be going this way … ’
And when he turned round, the drone was gone, utterly, not a sign of it in any direction. He shouted its name but nothing came back from the surrounding woods.
Except for the crack of a twig breaking underfoot. Robert whirled round – and saw the face of his daughter, Rosa, staring at him for a single startled moment before she ducked out of sight and darted away.
Amazed, startled, fearful, he plunged forward after her, barging through bushes and undergrowth, shouting her name, then pausing abruptly to listen for the sound of her running. Then off in pursuit again. But doubt rose in his mind like common sense catching up with him. Why would she be here? Was it likely that the Godhead would know her image, or was it more probable that the thoughtscape was reacting to him, that its meta-quantal properties were reflecting back to him important landmarks of his own subconscious? It was a conundrum, this bizarre confrontation with the autonomous imagery from both his own and the Godhead’s subconscious.
But despite understanding this rational conjecture, he knew he would have to keep up the chase, to find out where he was being led, to see if she would say anything true.
Through the trees he tracked glimpses of her. She seemed to be wearing a pale blue two-piece with a hood, which was easily spotted amongst the wood’s darker colours. Not once did she pause to look back, yet she did not seem to be taking any precautions against being seen.
After more than five minutes of unrelenting pursuit she led him to where the trees thinned into a meadow dotted with lush bushes. On the other side of it, a sheer cliff face loomed, its heights veiled in low-hanging cloud. Crossing the meadow, Rosa broke into a run and seemed to be near the foot of the cliffs when she turned to the side and stepped down out of sight.
As Robert left the shadows of the woods behind the faint thudding sound from before sounded louder and clearer. He hurried towards where he last saw Rosa and saw that it was the head of a rack of worn stone steps winding down to a steep-sided gully. Rosa was visible at the foot of it, crouching as she moved along the gully and round a corner. Without hesitation Robert hurried downwards.
It was warm at the bottom, a rocky channel above which cliffs reared to either side. The air had a peculiar, sharp taint to it. The thudding sounded metallic, and was irregular, two or three impacts followed by three or four heavier ones, a cluster of lighter ones, then two louder ones. Only when he reached and rounded the corner were his questions answered, then hardly how he expected.
Half in and half out of a huge cave mouth was an immense heap of machines. Robert re
cognised bots, drones, droids, vehicles small and large, torn-up sections of larger craft, and domestic devices too, washing machines, lawn-cutters, automaids, entertainment consoles, all manner and all sizes of holoscreens, as well as industrial power tools, engines, road-menders and many others. A very big brick-red hand dragged a piece down off the pile and onto a black slab of some chipped, unreflective material where a fearsome, ridge-faced sledgehammer wielded by another big brick-red hand fell upon it repeatedly, crushing it flat. The compacted debris was then tossed into a large rusty hopper the contents of which were presumably tipped into the blast furnace whose hot bright maw gaped just within the cave. At the centre of it all was a brick-red giant, hairless, clad in tattered hide breeks, his snaggle-tooth mouth muttering and growling.
And there, on the other side of the A-sided framework that cradled the hopper, was a pale-blue-clad form creeping along behind the small mounds of flattened wrecks that had missed their target.
Robert stared at the grotesque scene, the grumbling giant, the hammered machines, the hungry furnace. What is this? he wondered. What is it doing in the Godhead’s subconscious?
There was no time to lose if he wanted to stay on Rosa’s trail. Crouching along at the foot of the cliffs, he hurried to the path Rosa had taken, slipping behind crushed, mangled metal while the red giant went about its hammering business. Except that he had gone barely a dozen wary steps when a deep gravelly voice said:
‘Halt! You have the stink of machines about you!’
Robert froze, wondering how he had been detected.
‘Because I have good ears, device-lover!’ said the giant. ‘And a good nose which tells me what you smell of!’
‘Why am I being stopped?’ Robert said from behind the heap of battered metal. ‘I saw someone else go past … ’
‘Them ladies are permitted to roam – s’orders. Intruders must be put to the test!’
‘Does this test involve any pressing, squeezing, crushing or even possibly hammering?’
‘You will submit to the test! All machines must be destroyed!’
‘I’m not a … ’
He gasped and flinched when something struck the side of the hopper assembly with such force that it tipped over, threatening to come down on him. But its centre of gravity pulled it back to crash down, crumpled sheets of debris spilling out. Robert turned and ran past the furnace, feeling the heat of it burning in his face, neck and hands.
A big slab of compacted metal slammed into the cave wall just a few feet before him. Sparks and splinters of stone sprayed in all directions and he felt something nick his forehead.
‘You dare! – you dare enter my hall! Machine-lover filth!’
Another crashing noise but further back for some reason. Then there was a whirring noise descending from above – it was the drone, Reski Emantes, looking even more retro than before.
‘I can see that you’re having lots of fun,’ it said.
‘Is that wood panelling on your upper casing? Most distinguished.’
‘It’s not what you would call robust. Look, Robert Horst, I know who you’ve been following and you need to catch up with them. When I cause the diversion, be ready to run … ’
‘Wait, what do you mean by “them”?’
Too late, the drone was already aloft and flying over to buzz around the red giant’s head. With deafening roars and hammer blows ringing in his ears, Robert scrambled past the furnace and made a dash for a low tunnel at the back of the cave. He slipped on loose gravel and almost stumbled but managed to keep his feet. Glancing back, he saw the giant holding the drone in one hand and bellowing incoherently at it for several seconds before slamming it down onto the black slab and hoisting that hammer up high …
Robert turned away and hurried off along the curving tunnel, wincing as he heard the repeated impacts. Yet this was the meta-quantal thoughtscape of the Godhead and since his own subconsciousness was determined to have Reski Emantes as a companion it was very likely that the drone would show up again.
The tunnel was strewn with pebbles and grit and lit by strange veinlike growths that erupted from the walls every ten paces or so, giving off an amber glow. The curve tightened into an upward spiral and the tunnel floor began to look clean, swept and surfaced in some dimpled plastic material. The glowing veins became chevron-shaped light sources pointing in the direction he was going, which made him smile.
At last he came to a large triangular entrance with double doors which smoothly swung upwards when he approached. As he walked through he was met by a tall woman in a dark trouser suit and carrying a slim datapad. She had short black hair and pretty features offset by a formal, somewhat impassive air.
‘Thank you for coming, Ambassador,’ she said with a slight Scottish accent. ‘Now that you’re here, we will shortly bring in the guests. If you follow me I’ll introduce you to the observers.’
Robert smiled and nodded, feeling almost used to the incongruities being presented by the Godhead’s subconscious. But is this merely an elaborate stage for me to caper across, or some form of challenge or test?
Through a pale blue lobby he was led into a high-ceilinged auditorium, emerging from a side door. To the left was a curved bank of empty seating and on the right was an elevated platform with a cluster of low easy chairs, two of which were occupied. Behind the platform a row of tall windows looked out on an astonishing sight, what appeared to be the towers, blocks, domed gardens and covered walkways of a city in the sky. Architectural styles seemed to derive from the old sleek, mirrored teknokratia school but its application to an airborne metropolis was breathtaking.
And made up, he thought. All this is just the fancy and spectacle of the Godhead’s subconscious reflecting my own experiences back at me via the meta-quantal flow. He smiled. But this is one place that I could imagine being real. In fact, it does have a certain consistency to its design, a kind of purposeful authenticity.
His guide led him up to the platform, where two other women were waiting.
‘Ambassador, this is Observer Catriona and Observer Corazon.’
They were both diminutive women, dressed as formally as the first, but the contrast in their demeanour was marked. Observer Catriona was slight as a dancer with straight, shoulder-length brunette hair and an expression as unperturbed as that of Robert’s greeter. Observer Corazon, on the other hand, had black curly hair and an elfin face that positively glowed with a kind of bold charisma. When she smiled it was like being dazzled.
He shook hands and was offered a chair between them. As he sat, he looked questioningly at the woman who had welcomed him.
‘Pardon me, but are you not allowed to tell me your name?’
‘I am Supervisor Julia. We will now admit the guests.’
Behind the top tier of seats a line of doors opened and the audience, all women, filed steadily, quietly into the hall. Although they were all ages and various physiques, they all had sandy blonde hair and the same unmistakable features.
They were all Rosa.
Robert could feel the hairs prickling on the back of his neck. There had to be at least three hundred versions of Rosa arriving, settling into seats, chatting with neighbours, glancing or peering or staring at him with expressions of delight or accusation or indifference.
A new species of nightmare, he thought, wondering if he would be allowed to leave. But when he glanced over at the door by which he had entered he saw only a blank stretch of wall. Same with the entrances at the top of the seat tiers, gone. Swallowing, he smiled nervously. There is an element of purpose to this.
The woman called Supervisor Julia walked to the front of the dais.
‘Thank you all for attending. As you know, this is only an informal hearing, therefore the duration is expected to be malleable. Now, Observer Catriona will open the case for the reproach.’
The slender brunette got to her feet, took a silver penlike object from her pocket and pointed it at midair. A blur-edged cube appeared with frozen darkness
within it.
‘This should be familiar to all present,’ Observer Catriona said.
The darkness unfroze, became a replay of vid footage he was indeed very familiar with, the news report of the clash between the Life and Peace flotilla and a Hegemony cruiser at a waypoint on the Metraj border. The warning messages, the visual excerpts from those aboard the Pax Terra, the fleeting glimpse of Rosa among them, the cruiser opening fire, the explosions, the awful images from aboard the smaller craft. It took place nearly a year ago, but no matter how many times he saw it the rawness of his grief remained a black corrosive thing.
The recording ended with the peace vessel Pax Terra reduced to a leaking, battered wreck, after which the holoprojection vanished. Robert drew a deep, shaky breath and exhaled, feeling some of the sorrow ease.
‘A number of factors contributed to this tragedy,’ said Observer Catriona. ‘Yet the most significant were the actions of Rosa’s father, Robert Horst – as a high-ranking Earthsphere diplomat it was well within his abilities to compel his daughter to abstain from taking part in such a hazardous exploit … ’
‘Rosa would never give in to browbeating,’ Robert said.
‘You could have had her restrained, or confined,’ the woman said. ‘If you had, she’d be alive today.’
‘What kind of father would lock up … ’ But the words died in his mouth when he realised that everyone in the Rosa audience was watching him intently.
‘The other main factor was the macro-political one,’ Observer Catriona went on. ‘Robert Horst was the senior Earthsphere negotiator, both before the invasion of the Yamanon Domain and after. If anyone was in a position to engineer the withdrawal of Earthsphere and Hegemony forces it was him. Yet here we are eight years and millions of deaths later … ’
The Ascendant Stars_Book Three of Humanity's Fire Page 38