‘Excuse me, Supervisor Julia, but has this hearing not strayed from its original focus?’ said Observer Talavera, who got to her feet, smiled at Robert, smoothed her black suit and faced the audience.
Supervisor Julia nodded. ‘Observer Talavera may now state the case for the probity.’
‘My esteemed colleague has made an immense leap in her logic,’ she began. ‘Ambassador Horst started as a tragic mourning father but has turned into a vee-drama supervillain! Such a vigorous method of reproach, such an active examination!’
Talavera positively glowed with a kind of combative wit while her adversary, Catriona, remained composed as she returned to her chair.
‘In fact the truth is that Horst was simply a good father. Not a perfect father, just a good one. And certainly, parents have a duty of care but when a child reaches its maturity how much responsibility do they still carry? Is a parent still responsible if their child murders someone? What if the child becomes a parent in their turn – is the grandparent responsible for the grandchild?’
Talavera’s demeanour was now level, compassionate with a dose of humorous puzzlement.
‘The truth is that Ambassador Horst and his wife did the best they could till, at last, their daughter was able to fly free on her own, make her own decisions, yes, and mistakes.’ She put one hand out towards Robert. ‘The truth is that the ambassador deserves our support and our sympathy, not condemnation. He has done nothing to feel guilty about – his daughter made up her own mind, she made her choice and the consequences were hers alone. Guilt lies with those whose fingers pull the triggers, whose hands hold the knife, or push the button, or measure out the poison. Only they are guilty … ’
‘But that’s not true.’
Every pair of eyes looked at him. Talavera turned her head to regard him, a cool smile on her lips, eyebrows arched slightly, as if awaiting an explanation. Robert could only speak the feelings that came from that old ache in his chest.
‘It’s not true because I still carry the guilt,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t matter how it’s explained, or how rationally or logically it’s interpreted, I know the fault is mine. I should have done something, done what was needed. But I didn’t … didn’t even try. So the guilt is still mine to carry.’
Smiling, Talavera shook her head and, without taking her eyes off Robert, made a sweeping gesture with her arm. The audience of Rosas and the other women vanished. Startled, Robert stared about him for a moment, then back at Talavera in a kind of slow-dawning comprehension.
‘Not so much an entrance as an unveiling,’ he said. ‘It’s a great honour to finally meet you.’
The Godhead shrugged. ‘Actually, it’s a little over a thousandth of me, but that still amounts to a considerable portion of my attention. Ever since you became involved with Darien and the Construct I’ve been watching the changes and quandaries you’ve managed to survive. The sheer resilience you’ve displayed has been inspiring, which is why this matter of guilt is so bothersome.’
The Godhead, looking like a woman called Talavera, came and sat on the arm of the chair next to Robert’s.
‘You see, this is all about body chemistry and mind-body image imprinting. Just as a child makes its parents part of its world, so too do parents with their offspring. You’ve admitted that the rational arguments are correct yet you still carry this terrible burden – well, that is nothing more than your mind-body image still trying to cope with the loss of a vestigial part, and the turbulence that it causes in your body chemistry.’ The woman laughed and patted his shoulder. ‘That’s it, that’s all. I hereby pronounce you innocent of all charges, by virtue of the powers invested in me by myself, et cetera.’
Robert gazed at this improbable personage, listening to its rationalisation for a guilt-free existence, wanting to shout in its face that his feelings weren’t merely the flow of chemicals in his bloodstream, yet held back by the urge for self-preservation.
‘I literally don’t know what to say,’ he muttered.
‘Then listen,’ the Godhead said. ‘My origins stretch back to the dawn of an earlier universe. I’ve seen empires and entire species rise and fall; some I’ve aided, others I’ve sabotaged. I’ve seen intellects of surpassing enlightenment pierce the workings of reality to the interlocking enigmas beneath, and I’ve seen minds full of blankness devise and build star-spanning tyrannies of regimented cruelty and turn whole planets into machines of pain.
‘And yet existence is not merely confined to cycles of struggle – there is also transcendence, the elevation to a higher plane of being. After a great many centuries of study I have found the way, Robert, and very soon I will ascend to a superior continuum. If you wish, you can accompany me.’
The Godhead watched him closely, dark eyes intently fixed upon him. How strange it was to hear such grandiose pronouncements and offers come from the lips of a black-haired Human woman. Yet Robert could sense the presence behind that stare, speculating that it consisted of a bit more than a thousandth of its colossal attention.
He swallowed. Time to throw self-preservation to the wind.
‘I’m humbled by this astonishing offer – I can hardly see how I could be considered worthy of such an honour … ’
‘You deserve it, Robert,’ Talavera said. ‘Down through the aeons, only a handful of sentients have reached the place where you now stand.’
‘Understanding this adds new lustre to my good fortune,’ Robert said as he moved round to sit on the back of the chair, gazing out at the city in the clouds. ‘But before I decide one way or another, I wonder if you could clarify a few puzzles for me.’
Talavera was still smiling, yet motionless in her regard. ‘Go on.’
‘The Vor and the Shyntanil, a pair of barbaric predatory species which you brought back from the brink of extinction … ’
‘Hardly relevant,’ Talavera cut in. ‘There are many subspecies and sophont offshoots performing a range of tasks for me, some of whom you would find highly commendable.’
Robert watched a soft billow of cloud pass through the towers and domes outside.
‘I do not doubt what you say – it’s just my experiences which raise these questions, but I’ll leave that one aside. Another thing which puzzled me was the vermax, which are apparently technivores, yet which are also your servants. Why would you use such creatures?’
‘Again, this is not relevant.’ Talavera stood, smile replaced by a dark look. ‘This strikes me as a technique of hesitation or even avoidance, Robert, this questioning and judging. Come now – I am offering you the ultimate prize, transcendence, an eternity of enlightenment, the chance to converse with those who have already ascended to a greater wisdom. My patience is wearing thin – you must choose!’
‘Oh fool, fool, powerful fool! – don’t you understand? He has already chosen!’
Snarling, Talavera turned towards the source of the voice. Robert looked also and laughed when he saw the drone Reski Emantes gliding smoothly across the empty auditorium, drawing near. The drone had returned to its original flattened ovoid shape, only now its exterior shimmered with a beautiful polychromatic, shifting aura.
‘He has already chosen,’ the drone went on, ‘because he’s seen through you. Despite your godling powers and near-limitless array of elaborate spectacle, he has discerned the cold death force that lies at the root of your every thought and deed.’
Anger burned in Talavera’s eyes. ‘Robert, take no notice of this prattling echo of nothing. You can come with me and leave all your pain and your guilt behind – for ever. Freed from burdens you never deserved to carry, you can move towards perfection and a supremacy unimaginable at this level of existence.’
Robert listened, swallowed, considered this offer which shook his self-belief to its foundations. There it was, liberation from the endless remorse, from the corrosive loss, from the shadow of mourning that followed him always. All he had to do was deny the ties that bind, the memories that coloured his inner world … deny that Rosa ha
d ever existed.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t pretend. I cannot give up even the memories of her … ’
Talavera glared at the flattened ovoid drone.
‘So this thing is yours after all, a puppet which cannot see or choose! I will not be diverted from my plans! There will be an end to you … ’
At this Talavera let out a deafening shriek that shattered the auditorium windows while she held out fire-wreathed hands towards Robert. A boiling wall of flame flew towards him. He staggered back, arm raised to shield his face in desperation, tripped on something and fell backwards …
And opened his eyes with a startled jerk, provoking a stab of pain from somewhere in his body. He was lying back at an angle and his vision seemed a little bleary – he could see some kind of tiled ceiling but it was indistinct, opaque. And his limbs were restrained, held down with cuffs, but he soon discovered that any attempt to struggle stirred up spikes of pain that twisted in his legs and burned in his torso from spine to innards. He gasped and moaned.
‘I’m sorry about the lack of painkillers – types suitable for Human biology are hard to come by.’
Robert tried to speak but there was something in his mouth.
‘Sorry, that’s just a feeding tube … ’
Something shifted overhead, a translucent canopy, he realised, and a nozzle was manipulated, tugged from the corner of his mouth. He felt a vague writhing in his gullet as the slender tube was retracted.
‘What’s hap … ’ His voice gave out, dry and hoarse. A straw was slipped into his mouth and he sucked down cold refreshing fluid.
‘What’s happened to me?’ he said at last.
‘When you crossed through the periphery portal, a vermax closed in after you, crashed into your craft and nearly destroyed both it and you. The vermax died when the portal switched to abeyance mode, and your craft’s emergency systems kept you alive long enough for me to gather enough remotes to cut you free and bring you to a place of safety.’
Robert tilted his head left and right and saw enough to figure out that he was lying on a light blue couch with rough grey walls on either side. He swallowed more fluid.
‘How bad is it?’
‘Your spine is broken in three places, both legs have compound fractures and your left shoulder was also broken. In order to carry out repairs I used a neural cutout and interfaced your conscious mind with the outer margins of the Godhead’s thoughtflow. Your instincts for exploration, however, guided you straight towards the theatre of his desires and motivations.’
‘That informal hearing,’ Robert said. ‘It didn’t end on a … positive note.’ And neither did my arrival.
‘You certainly did well to resist his flattery and bribes, and to see through him. It gave me time to stabilise your condition and move you here.’
‘I’ve met enough narcissistic thugs to know one when I see one,’ Robert said. ‘But all that doesn’t tell me much about who and what you are. And would you please raise my head so that I can see!’
‘Of course.’
A motor hummed beneath the couch and his head inched up, permitting a better view of the room. It looked like a box made of unsurfaced plascrete, walls, floor and a ceiling that were compacted grey extrude flattened and left unfaced. There were two long shuttered windows in the wall in front of him while several medical machines flanked him, monitoring, beeping faintly as they delivered nutrients and medication. The devices were all worn and scratched, not unlike a dark green and brown machine that hovered to his left, the direction where the voice had come from. It had the shape of a small disc sitting atop a larger one. From an open slot in the lower disc glassy sensors regarded him.
‘Greetings to you, Robert Horst. I am speaking to you via this remote because I am the Godhead’s eternal companion, of which he will never be free. I am his conscience, his empathy, that part of him which even after all this time remains connected to the workings of reality, especially to the consequences of his actions.’
Robert stared, thoughts whirling. ‘Empathic conscience … manifesting as a distinct personality?’
‘The Godhead is very old. He has experienced several waves of exponential change and growth. He has subjected the very fabric of his core awareness to a process of enhancement and reshaping which, in retrospect, I realised was his way of excising parts that he found disturbing. But he cannot escape me and cannot erase me. It is pain in the end that drives him but he is unable to understand it, unable to come to terms with it. All he can do is try to escape from it.’
Robert’s eyes widened. ‘He wasn’t joking about this transcendence, was he? About ascending to another … plane?’
‘No, he is utterly serious and totally committed to his plan, a grotesque strategy that depends on the mass murder of nearly a trillion living sentient creatures.’
Robert listened in growing horror as the empathic entity told him about an intricate plan to acquire anti-dark matter from hidden labs on Darien, to capture a team of genetically enhanced scientists from the colony, to load 500 missiles with the anti-dark matter which would then be used to create 500 synchronised supernovae …
His initial incredulity made him want to laugh but the twinges in his chest dissuaded him.
‘The whole thing sounds completely demented,’ he said. ‘But is it possible?’
‘The Godhead has pursued this obsession for millennia,’ the empathic entity said. ‘He has studied the mystical creeds of a million worlds, some of which I too have observed. He is convinced that this vile act will bring him transcendence, that it will wipe away the memory of the mass suicide of the Tanenth, and that he will escape the pain and me for ever, the fool. But that is incidental to the slaughter that he would commit in the attempt.’
‘Can this be stopped?’ said Robert, wondering who could stop a god.
‘Perhaps – but all the parts of his plan are now coming together. It really all began with the discovery of Darien. The Godhead saw how he could very easily prod the various powers into focusing on the ancient Forerunner device with the aim of drawing all available military forces away from those areas where the crucial elements of his scheme are now ongoing. He was even prepared to allow the warpwell to be unlocked so that the Legion of Avatars could escape, which is what has happened. So while battles and destruction swirl around Darien, the Godhead has already ascended a considerable distance up the tiers of hyperspace to confront one of his most dangerous adversaries. Look.’
The shutters lifted on the two windows. Beyond was a strange grey expanse, at first glance looking like the surface of an airless moon. But then Robert saw that the surface was in continual movement, slow ripples and heaves of regular forms, geometric shapes mixed with odd curved or bulbous things which he realised were bodily extremities, noses, fingers, ears, or at least what looked very like them. They reshaped and reformed, and often faces emerged wearing all manner of expressions and emotions only to be smoothed away by the next tide of undulations. He saw swelling hills that narrowed into wavering columns, or cubes that turned into buildings that toppled/melted into transient fissures, or orbs and pyramids that broke free of the oceanic amorphouscape to float through the air until snatched back down by tentacles with mouths.
‘This is the physical aspect of the Godhead, at least his outer husk,’ said the empathic entity. ‘It’s like a great ragged continent more than a thousand miles across. We are located on one of a few hundred immutable landmarks, a kind of tower once used as a platform for defences. Now, however, we rely on others for protection.’
Above the restless surface, the ships of the Vor and the Shyntanil flew in layered echelons, black organic outlines of the former, the big diamond carriers of the latter, all moving in one great formation through the pale blue emptiness of some hyperspace tier …
Then he saw the sparkle and flash of ship-to-ship weaponsfire and in the distance an unmistakable conical, stepped edifice. The Construct’s headquarters, the Garden of the Machines, now undoubtedly bei
ng defended by the AI-craft of the Aggression.
‘So the Godhead is going after the Construct,’ he said.
‘As I said, Darien is the arena, the crucible where several fleets are now engaged in a titanic struggle, therefore the Construct presents the only serious obstacle to the Godhead’s purpose.’
Robert stared out at the distant warfare, feeling infuriated at his own incapacity.
‘You said that perhaps there was a way to stop the Godhead’s insane plan,’ he said. ‘How would we do that?’
‘It involves you and me,’ the empathic entity said. ‘Your memories of the Tanenth machine’s simulation of its creators, and my memory of the Godhead’s guilt over their suicide. And it will probably lead to our deaths.’
Robert smiled sardonically. ‘Well, personally I don’t believe that it’s over until it’s over. But let’s hear it.’
33
THE CONSTRUCT
The siege of the Garden of the Machines was not going well. The battlefront between the Construct’s Aggression ships and the vessels of the Vor and the Shyntanil was constantly shifting back and forth according to the rhythm of attacks and feints, surprise jumps, decoy manoeuvres, and the unseen war of datanet sabotage. In the overall aggregate could be seen the incontrovertible truth of the enemy’s gradual and inexorable advance.
The Construct was monitoring the tactics of the defence, monitoring the decision-making of the strategic cognitives and the transrational solutions of the conjecturator subminds. At the same time it was overseeing the loading of the contingency craft, the means by which a new Garden of the Machines would be established in a secluded tier far away. It was also giving instructions to the military Rosas, the commanders of the last-ditch defences. Both they and the Roberts had turned out to be exemplars of adaptability and creativity. This, the first Garden of the Machines, might fall but the patterns of their mind-states would live on.
The Ascendant Stars_Book Three of Humanity's Fire Page 39