Blackout

by Edward W. Robertson

  His pad alerted. The electromagnetic pulse wasn't the gentle touch of a common message, but the stinging burst of urgency. Toru activated it.

  Hoto's angled face appeared on the screen. He gestured, the pad translating it into electronic signals that made Toru's sense-pods stand up straight.

  "Commander," Hoto signed. "There is violence at the hive. The natives attack."

  "Send me all that is known," Toru replied. "I will be there in five segments."

  He bolted to the door in a flurry of limbs, fetching the icon of his station, a silver badge shaped like the wheel of the ancient ships that had once plied the seas of Dov. He got his command disk and clicked it, signaling the door to open. Inana followed him out. They scuttled down the broad channel, spikes and pads churning. All those they encountered made way the moment they saw the look on Toru's face, their eyes tracking him as he ran toward the tube. His pad pulsed with updates. Many natives had been spied at the hive in the ruins of the city. It was believed that several gutbrothers had already been killed.

  Anger coursed through Toru's organs. Were they that foolish to attack the hive when his people had made no recent attacks on them? He saw no tactical objective for the natives to achieve at the location. It was convenient for the landing of planes and the growth of structures. Then there could be but one reason for humans to be there: to kill his people.

  They came to the mouth of the tube. It was half full of crew. Inana called to them, commandeering it. They held apart the doors and cleared its orders. Toru entered. The doors closed behind him with a low surge of motor-charges. The car swayed, accelerating hard.

  The others within the tube car faced forward, tentacles held straight down, the posture of those who wished to minimize their physical presence. Toru twisted his pad's comm to a tight band that would be difficult for anyone but himself to sense.

  By the time the car decelerated to a stop, he had received most of the raw details. All that remained was to decide what to do with them. He exited, Inana keeping pace. They dashed down another channel. At the doors to the Innermost, two guards of the Vigil stood watch, carrying ceremonial spears, the heads long and cruelly curved, designed to thrust past limbs and carve into the sanctity of the body. The guards stepped aside, doors opening with a barely-felt thrum of motors.

  Toru strode through. As always, he was struck by the room's grandeur. Many nines of crew at their computers, overseeing the countless affairs of the colossal ship. Wide, terraced rings led down to a round central command station. His council of nine awaited him there. Toru descended the ramp to the floor.

  "Commander." Dden moved before him, tentacles expanded in anger that was surely directed at the natives. "Have you heard that which happens?"

  "I have," Toru gestured.

  "Then have you brought orders?"

  "First: those on the ground are to defend themselves with vigor."

  This drew a pleased bobbing of limbs from all assembled.

  "Second: further death to our gutbrothers must be minimized. All those on the ground will withdraw to defensive postures and stay within them."

  Several council members tightened their limbs to their bodies. Dden kept his gestured restrained, betraying no emotion. "But there are already those gutbrothers who are dead. Murdered by the natives."

  "There is only this moment. In it, it is more important to continue to bring in the Farschoolers than to harvest vengeance."

  "Did you not hear me? I said that gutbrothers are dead. We must give the offenders the Cold Answer. Is that not so?"

  The others awaited Toru's answer with sense-pods held so high it was as though he aimed a gun at them.

  "We will not strike," he gestured. "This is the price we pay for pursuing the Way. We must accept this. All those who die in such service will be honored with additional ninth-slots so their selves may go on in their offspring."

  Dden lurched a step closer. "That is not enough."

  "The risks were understood when we came here."

  "And it was also understood that gutbrothers would fight for gutbrothers. How can you watch your family die to these things who are so weak?"

  "Each death is a spine to my hearts," Toru signed. "But I am strong. As are you. As is every gutbrother who came to this ravaged world. We will survive this. And through our perseverance, like life itself, we will come out even stronger."

  Dden rocked back on his limbs, swiveling his eyes between the eight other members of the ship's council. "You say we are strong. But yet we don't answer the death of our family. We forsake the Cold Answer. Where is the strength in that?"

  Half the members of the council swayed their limbs in agreement. Toru blinked slowly, angry. "Where is the Way in smashing those who are weak?"

  "Isn't that what all life does? So what is the Way in holding back? What if the Farschool is right? Is it wrong to think this world would be better run by us?"

  "This idea you speak is madness. Are you that thrilled by the notion of an empty world to be taken? It's not ours. It never was. That which is right is to remove the Farschool and only then to decide."

  "I think that you have already decided," Dden said. "I think your decision is that the natives' blood is more treasured than that of your own—or the thousands of Farschoolers they have murdered."

  "The Farschool died through its own neglect of the Way!"

  "Yet they are dead. And those deaths must be answered. In so doing, we honor their blood. And if they were wrong to take this world, we can take it and grow that which is right."

  Toru lifted his hammer-pod, the tentacle's club-like end hardened and heavy. "This is not about answering for blood. This is no more than an excuse to take."

  The tips of Dden's tentacles curled inward, smirking. He smoothed them, clearing his expression. "So is that your decision? To let our gutbrothers rot on foreign earth?"

  "To seek the Cold Answer is to invite more deaths. We will take in the Farschool. We will learn what they have done and what they have learned of this place. Only then can we decide our course."

  "I am saturated with regret," Dden motioned, limbs drooping. "But also resolve. And so I turn to the council." He swiveled, gaze shifting between those who stood on the floor of the Innermost. "I seek the Cold Answer. Do you seek the same?"

  Kell lifted one sense-pod and his hammer-pod. This did not surprise Toru. Yet as each member of the council lifted their tentacles in turn, Toru felt as if his hearts would stop.

  "Then it is so," Dden announced with a snipping of claws. "The natives' attack will be answered for. And you will authorize it."

  Toru kept himself as still as possible. "I do not grant my authority to this measure."

  "The council demands it. You are bound to do so."

  "Then I invoke the commander's reprieve. We will follow my course for three days. When the third day ends, I will do whatever the council decides. Now send the order. Our people will secure the hive, but they are not to engage unless attacked first."

  Dden tightened his claws. "You leave me no choice. The council is defied, and so I ask the council: is Toru to be the voice of command?"

  Again, Kell was the first to gesture. "No."

  Again, the others did the same. All but Aaru. But eight, including Dden, was more than they needed.

  And so Toru, commander of the Eye That Sees Through the Dark, sector representative of the Deepfinders, found himself nothing more than Toru.

  "It is done," Dden said. "Toru is relieved of command."

  He tensed his claws. Tentacles coiled around his limbs, firm but not yet rough. He turned and looked into the eyes of the Vigil.

  "This cannot be done," Toru gestured with his free tentacles. "This is not the Way!"

  Dden gestured to the two soldiers of the Vigil. "Take him to confinement."

  Should he resist? Smash Dden down? Toru glowed with anger—and yet the disapproval of his comrades, their lack of confidence in his ability to continue as commander, sapped his strength like so ma
ny leeches.

  "With me, once-commander," one of the Vigil gestured subtly.

  "Wait," Dden said. He reached toward Toru, took the silver wheel from Toru's chest, and clipped it to his.

  Numbly, Toru allowed himself to be led up the terraces of the Innermost. As he passed, the crewmen on each terrace stood from their stations. Toru liked to think he saw sympathy in their expressions, but he knew this was likely not so. Inana could not meet his gaze at all.

  The Vigil took him to a small tube he'd almost never used before. He rode in stillness. The car slowed. The Vigil led him into a large, dim room that smelled strongly of the sea and the brackish smell of ged-plants. Orange boxes lined the walls.

  "Don't worry, once-commander," motioned the same Vigil who'd spoken to him before. "The room is for you alone. Empty. Even when we take the Farschool aboard, it will remain so."

  "Thank you," Toru signed back.

  One of them stayed beside him while the other moved to open the lid of the rearmost box. Once it was peeled back, the Vigil strode to the wall, opened a hatch, and removed an expandable ramp, which he arranged beside the box.

  "Your effects," the Vigil beside him gestured.

  Toru removed his two bandoliers, then turned out the pockets of his uniform. Graciously, they allowed him to keep the straps of the uniform itself.

  Toru walked to the ramp. He felt as though he should say something, but he had no words. He climbed the ramp and lowered himself to the box's interior. The lid curled closed, light peeping through its seam. Then this sealed, too, leaving him in darkness.

  * * *

  Alone, seeing nothing but blackness, sensing no motions but those he made himself, Toru sank into the Despair of the Depths.

  How had he missed the signs of their impending treason? Was he that much the fool? Or had he been so absorbed in his work gathering up the Farschool that he'd had no attention to spare for the machinations of his council? If the latter, the shame was theirs, not his. But if the former? Then perhaps he deserved to be stripped of command.

  Yet he had lost more than command. In being so relieved, he had also lost much of his generight. As commander of an entire starskipper, his genes would have been spliced into many thousands of eggs, which would in turn carry Toru many, many generations into the future.

  Because all lives had value, all people received a taste of this honor. Even the lowliest of servants who accomplished nothing was given a ninth-slot in one new life. More slots could be earned through long service, valor, righteousness, and so on. Even with these opportunities, very, very few earned slots as abundantly as the commanders.

  It was difficult to grasp the scale of his loss. The Splice was everything. The very core of Dovondom. By combining the genes of many into each of those who came next, everyone alive drew from the same genetic legacy. Thus when you fought, you fought beside your brothers. When you did that which was good, you did so knowing that your goodness would not live on as mere abstract, but as a piece of the living soul of all those who came after you, informing them with the same urges that had pushed you to it.

  And those whose honor was highest of all—those who brought an end to wars, or discovered new inhabitable worlds, or unlocked one of the universe's endless secrets—they were spliced into the mainstrand.

  Over time, it was believed that, in always combining the good with the good, the Dovon would grow ever better. While some saw this as a goal in itself, others thought the Splice would lead them to godhead.

  Such beauty! All were promised their portion of the future, and at the same time all were incited to make their present as perfect as it could be. And they were aided by drawing on the gene-strength of the past—portions of the mainstrand still belonged to heroes who had lived many hundreds of years ago.

  The harmony of such a system, and the way in which it bound society together through past, present, and future, was rivaled only by the systems of gravitational and atomic bonds which glued the universe together.

  Toru's place within that system had once been a great lake of promise. Now? No more than a drop remained.

  He slept. His dreams were not well. The last began as the worst of all: trapped in a cave, the water too cold for his blood, the exit guarded by a roddot whose fangs arced like quarter moons. Toru knew that, by challenging it, he risked his life. Perhaps it would be better to stay in the cold and dark?

  And yet he swam to face it. And he slashed and he clubbed and he struck. It seemed as though none of his blows found purchase—that the roddot was dauntless, impenetrable—but then it wavered, backing from the exit for the slightest moment, and Toru thrashed through, swimming past it with all his might, and light glimmered above him, and he broke to the shallows and looked out onto a fresh green land.

  Much time later, the seam around the box's lid went bright. Had Dden decided his demotion was not severe enough? Toru drew back and lifted his limbs. The lid peeled away, revealing Inana's somber face.

  "Toru," Inana signed. "You are not harmed?"

  "My body is fine."

  "I am sorry. I saw hints of what was to come, but I didn't see how serious they already were."

  "The fault is not yours. It is only mine—and Dden's. What he has done must be undone."

  Standing above the rim of the box, Inana lowered himself, bringing his face closer to Toru's. "But Dden wasn't alone. All the council voted with him. There is no convincing that many."

  Toru clacked his claws in wry amusement. "Who says I mean to convince?"

  Inana drew back. "You can't mean to resist."

  For a moment, Toru said nothing. He understood Inana's fear. There were only two ways to lose your genetic legacy completely: murder, and treason. To do as Toru hinted would mean erasure from the future of the Dovon.

  And yet.

  "'The Splice is the Way made flesh,'" Toru quoted. "If we give up on this world, and allow Dden to claim it through violence, then his falsehoods and those of all who support him will be intermingled with the Splice. Those here will be forever corrupted. The Way will turn bitter. The future will be an arid darkness."

  "I know this," Inana gestured, his tentacles barely moving. "And yet to resist it is to risk the eternal destruction of ourselves."

  "I have made my decision. It is better to risk all for glory than to quaver a lifetime in mean safety. All that remains is whether you believe the same."

  Inana drew his claws close to his body, head bowed. Toru's hearts sank. Inana lifted his hammer-pod high and smashed it against the lip of the box.

  "I will help you," Inana signed. "Damn my hopes, I will help you."

  "My thanks are more than I can motion," Toru said. "Then this is our path: to bring peace to the natives, no matter how much chaos this brings to ourselves."

  13

  Ness was standing on the topdeck of the sub in the marina not two miles from LAX when the first of the bombs dropped on the airport.

  He jumped, feet slipping on the damp metal surface. A big fat fireball whooshed up from the south side of the terminals. While Ness was still gaping, the thunder of the blast rocked through the night.

  He grabbed for his walkie. "Tristan. You there?"

  Her voice was staticky. "What's up?"

  "Those jets that came through a minute ago? They just bombed the airport."

  "The airport? But that's where their own people are!"

  "I'm only reporting the facts. Don't ask me to try to make sense of them."

  Another column of flame punched up into the night. Weird to see crap like that without the sound accompanying it. Made it feel even less real. Behind him, thumping noises alerted him that Tristan was on her way out of the top hatch.

  She paused halfway out, staring at the distant flames. "You weren't kidding. That is totally a bomb."

  "I thought I heard some guns going off a few minutes back, but it's been quiet since then. There hasn't been anything like a big ol' battle."

  "Maybe because they already lost."


  "Son of a bitch. If so, Raina's soldiers are gonna be on the run. What can we do to help them out?"

  "Nothing. If we move position, or get ourselves hurt trying to play hero, they won't have anyone to take them out of here. The best way to help is to stay put and let those who need help come to us."

  "In that case, there's a couple more things we can do: let the others know what's happening, and get ready to bounce."

  While she kept watch outside, he ducked downstairs to spread the word. Sam went up top with her rifle to lend Tristan another set of eyes and to help deal with any arrivals, friendly or hostile. Sprite double-checked the passageways and the smaller rooms they'd set aside for passengers. Sebastian upped the sub's readiness, maintaining the engines at a low hum.

  "I DON'T LIKE THIS," the alien signed. "THIS SHIP SNEAKS WELL FROM YOUR PEOPLE. FROM MINE, THE SNEAK IS NOT SO SNEAKY"

  "We're not aiming to get in a fight with anybody," Ness said. "We'll stick around long enough to see if anybody needs a lift, then cruise back to San Pedro."

  "YOU PREPARE AS WELL. IF WE MUST MOVE, YOU MUST MOVE FROM HARM AS FAST AS YOU DID AT AVALON"

  He nodded, stung by the memory of the bombs. "I'll be ready."

  Sebastian swung away from the control screens. "PROMISE ME NESS"

  "Don't worry, man. I'm not going to do anything to get myself killed."

  "YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS ME. AND I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS YOU. BOTH MUST LIVE OR BOTH WILL SUFFER"

  "I promise," Ness signed. "If trouble shows up, we're out of here."

  Sebastian nodded and returned to his controls. Ness jogged up the ramp outside. The wind was cold. Sam kneeled beside the tower, rifle shouldered, binoculars pressed to her face. Tristan surveyed the marina with her bare eyes. Like most marinas, it was a god-awful mess, with boats piled against the shore and others sunk beside the docks, masts jutting from the water. Junk floated everywhere, caught between the piers and the shipwrecks. The whole place smelled like the back of a seafood restaurant.