A Shroud of Night and Tears (Beyond the Wall Book 3)

by Lucas Bale

  ‘A civilisation will prosper when it learns not only about itself, but about the world in which it lives. It will devise methods of transport that transcend the limits of its own physiology. It will form urban centres to dwell in, for both convenience and collegiality. Social stratification is inevitable in such environments. The burgeoning civilisation will require a system of government—a ruling elite—as it expands and thrives, because individuals have needs and desires that differ greatly, and the interests of varied parties can only be met by the rulership of government.

  ‘It will exist in harmony with its natural surroundings for a time, using the resources its world has to offer, and eventually, the inhabitants will advance in their understanding of themselves and what surrounds them. They will consume the natural resources because to do otherwise would result in their extinction. Some understand the need to renew those resources and to consume moderately. Others consume recklessly and to excess. Those that cannot live in harmony with their surroundings might eventually die out, but more usually, they are simply forced to move on. Eventually, there is only one course open to them—the stars.

  ‘Humanity has long suspected it was not alone. Of course it is not. There are others in the universe. The infinite resources of space belong to those strong enough, and brave enough, to take them. There is no authority in the universe beyond those able to defend themselves. However a civilisation advances, whatever views it holds of those it does not understand, it will protect itself against potential threats. It may consider unfamiliar belief systems to be a threat, particularly where those beliefs differ wildly from its own. If so, it might seek to teach its own belief system to those it considers a threat, hoping that in doing so it can mitigate that threat by fostering a greater understanding of its own society.

  ‘Alternatively, it might consider another civilisation, particularly one less advanced than its own, to be inferior; in such cases it may, depending on its own system of government and social stratification, seek to subsume the other. It might use a lesser civilisation as a resource, feeding from its territory, and it might force those subjugated new members to take a place within its own social strata.

  ‘But one thing remains true: no civilisation can permit a threat to its existence. The will to survive was written into its psyche the moment it was born, sometimes many, many thousands of years earlier.

  ‘And sometimes, war is inevitable.

  ‘Two such civilisations stumbled upon each other long ago. Both were ancient; neither was new to the universe, nor to an understanding of the landscape of space and time. Yet with age comes hubris, not enlightenment. They were alien to each other in the truest sense of the word: their beliefs, their culture, everything that shaped one was repugnant to the other. Contact between them never reached trust; instead it jumped straight to hate. Words immediately became war.

  ‘Who struck the first blow is lost to the annals of a history neither of them can properly remember, but since that time, billions of lives have been lost in a conflict spanning generations. Treaties have been brokered and then ignored; truces agreed and then broken. Diplomacy has always hidden betrayal behind its back.

  ‘To the universe, mankind is barely a flicker. Whereas other civilisations have begun to understand their place among the stars—to truly comprehend the way in which the universe works—humanity barely understands what it means to exist safely by itself. Mankind was forced to leave its home prematurely. It was not ready. It is still weak, almost defenceless.

  ‘Others are not.

  ‘When humanity touched the stars for the first time, it did so quietly; no one took any notice. It managed this through fortune rather than design—the result of fumbling attempts born of desperation. Yet humanity began to spread. It fought to find its feet again after what they called the First Cataclysm. Despite warnings, despite one of those ancient civilisations choosing to protect and hide humanity from the other for centuries, man’s ruling elite gave in to a thirst to explore and a hunger for new territory.’

  Abraham stared at Gant more intently now, again searching his face for a reaction. Gant knew he could not possibly have concealed his disbelief as he struggled to take in what he was being told.

  ‘Whereas the war between those two civilisations had calmed,’ he continued, ‘it was one of many uneasy peaces, and it inevitably ended. Such is the way of hate. Again they are at war. And now, to both of them, mankind is a tool to be used, a resource to be farmed and a weakness to be exploited.

  ‘There is no question of fighting back. All humanity can do is mitigate the number of the dead.’

  C H A P T E R 27

  IF THE tent had been no more than a spartan living arrangement, the room into which they descended was considerably larger. The ceiling was not high—it was barely above their heads enough to stand up straight—but the room itself was long and wide. It was buttressed with heavy plinths of wood set into the dirt walls and ceilings, and held up by thick, steel struts. Light fell from caged lamps hooked up to power lines that ran along the walls in thick, spiralled cords. When the trapdoor closed, the noise from the camp above was dampened to near silence.

  Against each wall were several huge, curved module holo-displays, each connected to one of the power lines. All flickered slightly as if they were live, but they remained blank and grey, their contents hidden. Several wide tables stood in the centre of the room. Some bore complex navigational holographs and were bordered by communications modules; others had a battery of sculpted markers on a much wider holo-chart, which Shepherd didn’t recognise. The sight of the place, what it looked like to him, what it meant, hit Shepherd like a blow.

  There were more than a dozen people in the room, but Shepherd’s gaze fell on a single man haloed in the harsh, white light of the lamps hanging over the central table. He was short and slightly overweight, with a flat brow and a bush of wiry grey hair surrounding a balding pate, all of it huddled over sharp blue eyes. His clothes, though not military, were functional and bland—dishevelled too, as though they were put on in a hurry and without much thought.

  The moment Shepherd set foot on the dusty ground, the man looked up and regarded each of them, the newcomers, in turn. For a while, he didn’t speak; he just let his eyes sweep over them. Then he turned to the preacher and said, his tone dark, ‘You took some time getting here.’

  ‘There were complications,’ the preacher replied evenly.

  The man straightened and turned his head slightly. ‘Are we still on course?’

  ‘Yes.’ The preacher stood in the centre of the room beside one of the navigational tables. Several others, also dressed blandly, but more tidily, and who had been standing by the screens of their own modules, had stopped to look at him. Shepherd couldn’t read the expressions on their faces, but all of them seemed uncomfortable.

  ‘And who might she be?’ The man pointed towards the woman.

  ‘The navigator,’ the preacher said.

  The man nodded. ‘Of course. And still here. That’s something of a surprise. Your gamble would appear to have been well judged.’

  Shepherd looked around at the navigational charts and holo-displays, a considerable gathering of technology, and for an absurd moment he almost laughed. A navigator seems to be the last thing they need here. However, the thought didn’t lighten his mood. Instead, it poisoned it. The growing resentment, the secrecy and unseen manipulation, the volte-face his life had taken, all of it exploded at once.

  ‘Why don’t you stop talking about us as if we can’t hear you,’ he growled, barely able to keep the rising anger from his voice. ‘And tell us why we’re here.’

  The man turned and gave him a thin, bitter smile. ‘You’re here,’ he answered, ‘because we need you to be. Although in your case, Mr Shepherd, perhaps the truth is that all we really need is your ship.’

  The man dropped his gaze down at the sculpted markers. He picked one up in his hand and looked at it. ‘We must operate a cell structure. No operational t
eam may know the status or mission parameters of any other team. You’ll soon understand why that is. As a consequence, when each of you leaves for your briefings, you’ll do so alone. But there are things I should explain first.’

  ‘No,’ Shepherd said, shaking his head as he felt a vicious stab of fear. He held up his hand, mentally pushing all of it away. ‘I don’t need to know anything. I’m not interested. Whatever it is you’ve got running here, you’re not doing any damn thing with my ship.’

  The man said nothing. Instead, he let the silence linger. Maybe he was measuring the people standing in front of him, or perhaps he was settling in his own mind the desire to say whatever it was he felt needed to be said. He didn’t like them—Shepherd could see that immediately—but there was something else driving him.

  When he began, he spoke with a quiet intensity and barely paused. ‘Take a good look around you please, because the truth is quite inescapable. I’m sure you didn’t realise it when you arrived, and perhaps you’d rather not hear it now, but I’m here to inform you, with great regret of course, that mankind is soon to be at war.’ He said nothing for a moment, merely watched them, expressionless. When he continued, Shepherd caught a slight change in his tone. ‘The Republic will soon be gone. So, however much we might need you, please believe me when I tell you this: you need us even more. We are committing what the Quorum would almost certainly consider the greatest heresy against humanity. Of course, we here see things a little differently.’

  He glanced around the room at the men and women gathered around him, and Shepherd saw something in his eyes that might almost have been pride.

  ‘It is the intention of those you see around you, and indeed many more, to leave these star systems and establish a new colony. In a new star system where we will not, and cannot, be followed. For the last two years, we have been quietly preparing, away from prying eyes—laying the foundations and building alliances. We all know the risks. But despite our preparations, events have rather overtaken us, and we no longer have much time.’ The man turned the figure over in his hand and stared at it.

  ‘People have tried before,’ Weaver said. ‘The Magistratus is prepared for it. They expect it. They have measures in place to quash any insurrection. They have technology you aren’t able to predict or understand. They are training Kolyma inmates to be Peacekeepers. Their strength is only growing. You won’t succeed—you can’t. They will find and kill all of you.’

  The man looked at Weaver and frowned slightly. ‘Yes, you may be right. But the Magistratus is no longer the imperative. It hasn’t been for some time. They are not the only threat—they aren’t even the greatest threat. They know that, which is why they have been quietly strengthening their military forces.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Weaver asked.

  ‘We are not the only intelligent, technologically advanced civilisation in the universe.’ The man’s tone was dry and bitter. ‘As if anyone really believed we were. The Quorum has extended its reach too far. It has encroached upon what others view as their territory. In doing so, it has invited war upon us.’

  ‘This is crazy,’ Shepherd said.

  The man continued as if he hadn’t heard him. As though this speech was one he had given too many times before, but which nothing, now he had begun, would keep him from finishing. ‘Some considerable time ago, we think as much as fifty years, the Magistratus discovered something that changed what we know about our place in the universe. They realised the Visser tunnels don’t exist naturally.’ The man waved his hand at them. ‘Before you ask, it doesn’t matter how they found out, simply accept that they did. The tunnels weren’t created by some random event. They were manufactured.’

  ‘Someone else built them,’ Weaver murmured, as though the man had confirmed some suspicion that had been building in his own mind.

  Shepherd shook his head, struggling to take it in. Who else is out there? he thought. Why haven’t we seen them yet? ‘Are you saying others escaped the First Cataclysm?’

  ‘No, the tunnels are much older than that,’ the man said. ‘Far older than humanity, whatever the truth of our history.’

  ‘So you think they were created by an alien civilisation? Why haven’t we seen them before now?’

  The man levelled a look at him. For a while he didn’t say anything, and Shepherd saw him considering his response. He grew suddenly awkward. Eventually, he said: ‘We don’t really know yet. We have some information, but it’s far from complete. The Magistratus ploughed vast resources into studying the tunnels—part of the reason the navigator genus is so valuable to them.’ He nodded towards Natasha. ‘Every navigator they find takes them a step closer to understanding what the tunnels were really built for.’

  ‘But they already know that,’ Weaver said. ‘The tunnels are a gateway to travel between star systems. Journeys that would otherwise take thousands of years, maybe more. What else is there to know?’

  ‘If that’s all there was to the tunnels, then we wouldn’t be standing here.’

  ‘He asked you a question,’ the navigator said. It was the first time she’d spoken; Shepherd had almost forgotten she was there. Her tone was impatient. ‘What else is there?’

  The man regarded her almost with curiosity. ‘Have you ever wondered why your kind are able to see the fabric of space-time from which the tunnels are built?’ He didn’t wait for a response. ‘What you are in fact seeing are colonies of tiny organic molecules that live inside the tunnels just as comfortably as they might in nebulae. They feed off amino acids that occur naturally in the gas clouds. Those organisms contain strands of DNA that have been placed there as markers; the Magistratus thinks they’re navigational beacons. We think they’re probably right about that.’

  ‘That’s how I can see the breach to a tunnel?’ Natasha said.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘But what connection do I have to that DNA?’

  ‘Your DNA differs very slightly from ours. This occurred, almost certainly, at the time of your birth, and as a result of your mother’s own biology. Your DNA includes a particular, very distinct, genetic code that has but one purpose: to allow your central nervous system to perceive a greater range of sensory stimuli, including the electromagnetic fields possessed by these organisms. Genetic engineering and molecular cloning are not new to the Magistratus. Neither, it would appear, are they new to anyone else.’

  The man straightened and looked directly at her. ‘However, the real trick—and what gives us the greatest cause to fear what’s coming—is that the DNA in the organisms which reside in the tunnels, that additional code that is also found in your own genes, is too close to human DNA to be coincidence. Wherever it came from, so did we.’

  C H A P T E R 28

  IT MIGHT have been a spacecraft, but it had no obvious drives or engines. It was unlike anything Gant had ever seen before, or could even imagine being built; the scale of it drowned him. It was not aerodynamic, because of course it had no need to be, yet neither did it appear cumbersome. Instead it was smooth and long, like the crescent hull of some vast ocean-going vessel, curving outwards then up, and only slightly in on itself. Along what might be said to be the dorsal spine of the ship, its almost flat plateau-like top surface, there was what seemed to be an entire city—endless vertebrae of tavara, glistening like an expanse of stars, far more than he could possibly count. Were Abraham to set The Flame of Tartarus down among those shards of silver and black, it would immediately be lost inside that sprawling city.

  As they approached, Gant saw that the hull of that sleek leviathan was dark, as though it reflected too little light from the surrounding planets and the binary suns that burned in the far distance. He glanced at Abraham, but of course there was no emotion on the man’s face. Nothing about the elegant, colossal craft towards which they now flew surprised Abraham because, Gant realised, he was not a stranger to it.

  He guided the Tartarus to one of the immense curved flanks, below and away from the city, along what Gant view
ed as the underside of the hull. As they approached, bay doors unfurled like a sphincter, shedding a mist of pale blue light into the black of space. Thrusters fired, and the Tartarus drifted through those doors until Abraham was able to set the ship down in a brightly lit but completely empty docking bay. It was a colossal space, presumably meant for ships far bigger than the Tartarus, yet it had neither the machinery of a docking bay hanging from the walls and ceilings, nor, apparently, any living souls to greet them.

  ‘There is no need of a suit,’ Abraham said as he took Gant to the main hatch and opened it. ‘You will be able to breathe normally.’

  Abraham led Gant away from the Tartarus, through simple archways and along warm passages. Other than the sphincteral bay doors through which they had entered, Gant saw no airlocks, no blast doors, no doors of any kind. The skin of the walls was unlike the hull of the ship—it was much lighter, a pale blue-grey with an almost satin sheen, and ribbed. Soft lamps diffused warm light over those sweeping walls, across the ceiling, and into entrances to quiet alcoves that led away from the network of passages. They were surrounded by silence as they walked—no hum from drives and systems, no hiss of gas exchange. Even their footsteps were muted; the floor beneath them was hard, yet not metallic.

  Eventually, as Gant wondered why they had seen not one living soul aboard this ship, Abraham paused beside the entrance to yet another alcove and motioned for Gant to enter.

  There was movement inside as he did. Three figures stood when they saw him, a movement they seemed almost uncomfortable with, as though they did it because they believed it was expected of them, rather than something they were used to doing. Yet it was still graceful.