by Jeff Stanley
“What are you doing? Why are you doing this?” Dersi grit her teeth and pulled against the tight restraints, her efforts futile.
“Don’t worry, Dersi. You are about to fulfill your purpose, and you should feel proud, proud of your contribution to my Eden.”
“No! Let me go!”
“So like Santiago and his lackeys.” He shook his grotesque head. “They would not listen to me, would not see the sheer majesty, the beauty of this completely interdependent ecosystem, a system unlike any we’d ever encountered. I cannot blame them. They were always men and women of action, not understanding the nuances and secrets that could be discovered through observation, interaction of a more peaceful nature. No. They would not—perhaps even could not—see that this beautiful world, this Garden of Eden, had evolved a sentience beyond human comprehension, that it was—is—in effect, one organism, one living, breathing, reacting, cognizant creature.
“It welcomed us as we came down from the stars, Dersi. Can you imagine? Though our engines scorched its body for kilometers in every direction at our landing zone, the world-mind welcomed the strays from another world, sought to communicate with us, to learn from us, and to teach us.
“But men like Santiago could not understand the entreaties. We argued with them—myself, Marissa Flaherty, a few others. We argued, pleaded with them to pause, to listen, to strive to understand. But, crippled by the vagaries of fate, Santiago forbore our advice, and launched an assault on the planet. He broke the seal on the massive terraformers, released alien, Terran life-forms upon this pristine world, perverting it, wounding it in ways we could not possibly understand. He hunted ool from the skies, Dersi, burned them as they floated and released peace pheromones onto the wind currents.”
Dersi panted. The bonds around her chest and arms, her head and legs, held her firmly, but gently. She could not move. She could only stare at the horrifying apparition of God, there before her on his throne. She screamed, her throat raw.
“We acted, a few of us. We had to, don’t you see? They were killing it, killing the very planet that had welcomed us with open arms, prepared to accept us into a brotherhood such as has never before been witnessed. Imagine! Two species, from worlds light-years apart, intertwined as one! It is miraculous.
“Santiago did not see it that way. Nor did the security forces, the marines and troopers.” He sighed, shaking his head. His voice lost its angry edge, sinking into sadness, regret. “In the end there really was no choice. I knew we could communicate with the world-mind, given time. We could still realize my dreams. But only if the others were rendered powerless to harm us and our host. In the end, only my way could pave the road to true communion.”
The rods sunk into the base of his skull retracted, rising into the complex array overhead. Clamps and tendrils withdrew, and God stood. He walked toward Dersi, his organic arm extended. His fingertips, warm and wet, touched her cheek.
“Alas, Marissa and the others were not strong enough. We built well, or thought we did. The interface was thought to be perfect, and we held our collective breath in anticipation as we all opened ourselves to communion with the greatest, most vast mind we had ever encountered.”
He shook his head and turned away from her, staring at the immense crystalline screen on the opposite wall. At a gesture the screen wavered, and images sprang into clarity upon it. Men and women, dressed in bizarre clothing that covered them from ankle to throat, stepped into niches cut into cold, metal walls and seated themselves in chairs dancing with lights and crawling with lifeless cords and tubes. More than a hundred sat and caught their breath, and waited as spiked helmets dropped down over their heads, concealing their faces above their mouths. A stream of intermingled voices rose from the images, the words indistinct, unintelligible, but burdened with keen excitement. The excitement changed to panic, the anxious voices to screams of horror and pain. The men and women writhed in their gleaming chairs, struggled against the bonds that held them. One woman broke her arms free and raised them toward the ceiling of her recess, even as mucus oozed down to coat her in a glistening second skin. Her cries abruptly ceased.
Dersi stared in horror as more and more of the people on the screen were overwhelmed by dripping ooze, their cries forever stilled, their bodies locked into permanent stasis. Until, finally, one voice, alone, cried out, a voice vaguely familiar. The other images winked out one by one on the screen, and the central picture swelled to encompass all of the immense rectangular crystal. A lone man, whose cries trickled off, his rigid limbs relaxing, now let his mouth open in wonder rather than agony and fear.
“Yes. That is me. Of all my compatriots, I alone survived intact our first successful interface with the immensity that is the world-mind. And with that interface . . . Ah, Dersi! You cannot begin to imagine. Even the Veil Lords, closer to the world-mind than any unveiled, cannot begin to imagine the scale of the sentience I touched. And, touching, absorbed. And in turn was absorbed.
“I am the world-mind, Dersi. I am the ool, all ool.” He touched the dangling cords that rose toward the ceiling. “I am connected to this ool, and it, in turn, is connected to all the others. I am the drakes. And I am the landskin. All of it. A precious gift, the most precious in all the universe.”
“You’re insane!” Dersi spat.
He turned back to her, smiling. “Perhaps. From your frame of reference it doubtless would appear so. But your scope is limited, Dersi. Your perceptions are crude, unevolved, pitiful. Do not lament, Dersi. The fault is not yours, but mine. For too long have I kept you Bhajong ignorant of your true purpose in my Eden. I had such high hopes for you, for all of you. But . . . But you’ve failed. Utterly. Now . . . Now my other children are nearing completion, nearing birth. You have become superfluous.”
He paused, licking his lips with a thousand tongues. “But . . . Perhaps . . . You, Dersi. You’re different. I can feel it. Genetic throwback, perhaps? Or an anomaly cast adrift in this sea of genetic flotsam? Could you appreciate the gift?
“This is not a gift I am content to enjoy alone, Dersi. I am not content to dwell with this immensity alone among all my birth-species. This garden must be shared, cultivated, brought to fruition. The world-mind once offered such a divine relationship to complete strangers and only a few of us accepted. I have made it my crusade to bring this garden to all, to welcome the rest of my brethren, their children, into this communion.
“The Veil Lords were a failure. Power hungry and delusional, borne of impure gene codes, they could grasp only a tenth of what the world-mind had to offer.” He strode to the wall near Erekel and stroked the tangled ridges of resin there with his organic arm. Cilia burst from the wall, caressing his hand. “But, finally, with their unwitting aid and the fruits of their distended wombs, I have succeeded. I have given life to the first of the new breed, Dersi. The first to enjoy the unique, complimentary heritages of both their human ancestry, and the gift of the world-mind.”
He gestured, and the screen flared to life once more, revealing an immense, vaulted chamber. From floor to ceiling and all around were translucent cases, sacks, and within each, a human form. Pale, red-haired, perfect.
“My new children. I am on the cusp of transforming the world. You are nearly perfect, Dersi. Against my understanding, you are as close to me as I could ever dream of achieving. You will be the next, the first of our kind after me, to achieve complete union with the world-mind.” He gestured to the screen. “And these will serve us.”
The chamber shook, a rill of rippling flesh spasming across the walls. Dangling tentacles twitched, and God jerked back from her, his face contorted in pain. An eerie keening wail arose from his horrid mouth, a cry that shook the room. Dersi squeezed her eyes shut, balled her hands into fists, and strained against her bonds. But they held.
God winced, a tightening of his organic tissues. He wheeled away from Dersi and sat in his throne. “We’ve crossed into the realm of the Enclave. Soon, it will be time to reclaim my lost children, my Adam
and Eve, loosed from the bowels of this Heaven before their time.”
Dersi screamed as the metal walls of the room bulged inward, pressed by an incalculable weight of ool-flesh. Metal buckled, wall panels collapsing into the chamber. The machinery overhead whined, steam belching from hairline cracks, stinking fluids spurting from veins and arteries and cold metal tubes. The screen behind God shattered.
Chapter 34
APF 0168
Sundar Singh felt a tingle of fear in the pit of his stomach. With the stoic calm he had cultivated for most of his two-hundred-plus years, he kept the emotion from his face. He stared at his hands, twisting the wedding band, the symbol of love long lost, around and around on his finger.
“I’ve said something to alarm you.” The voice throbbed with power, rich and full. Confident. Singh could hear the smile behind those words, the genuine enjoyment Eric took in inspiring such fear. Though Singh did not look at the Hatchling, he could hear the subtle creaking of the formed plastic chair as the monster shifted position. Despite a career spent delving into the secrets of the most secretive of men and women, Singh could not help but shift backward, away, in response. He did not want Eric too close.
Singh licked his lips. “No. No, of course not. Go on. Please.” It took all of his self-control, all of his training, to utter the words. He wanted nothing so much as to jerk back, perhaps run, and summon the sentries. This beast should be put down. Now. Immediately.
Eric laughed, a hearty sound, deep like his voice. “You amuse me, Singh. Greatly. Tell me: Do you believe you can mask your fear from me? Perhaps such a thing is possible among your kind, but not with me. Never with me.” Eric leaned forward, reaching out a hand ripe with calluses and huge, purple boils, and touched Singh’s long, tapered fingers. One nailed finger touched the wedding band. “I can smell your fear. I can taste your panic.”
Singh marshaled every shred of reserve he possessed and pulled his hand away gently, slowly. It would not do, he knew with certainty, to acknowledge this power Eric had over him. Not openly. If he did not speak it, did not acknowledge it, it could not be certain. Even for Eric. Even if he could smell such an intangible thing as fear.
Eric laughed again, and Singh looked up at the Hatchling. Not a large man, he was nonetheless plump with power, suffused with it. His seamless, smooth face, still round in the cheeks with the youth of his artificial birth, gave him the look of a simpleton, a moron. But his eyes, bright and round and piercing, revealed the depths of cruel intellect wadded up within that cherubic face. His eyes blazed, sinking into Singh’s skin like hooked needles, pulling bits and pieces away like gobbets of flesh. Singh avoided staring into those eyes, knowing their power.
“I can imagine your thoughts, you know. Right now, you’re wondering if you shouldn’t call security. Perhaps you think to put me down now?” Eric laced his fingers together behind his head. “Do it, if it will make you happy.”
“I was thinking no such thing.” He licked his lips, hating the nervousness he knew shone through his façade. “We were speaking of . . . of . . .”
“Lost your train of thought?” Eric laughed. “You’re slipping. It must be your age catching up with you. What are you now, a hundred? More?”
“I . . . We are not speaking of me, Eric. We—”
“But why not? Time and again we’ve met and you’ve listened to me talk, ever since I was hatched. And yet, during all that time, five years now, I’ve learned nothing of you that I haven’t ferreted out on my own initiative.”
“Wha . . . What do you mean?” Was that panic leaking through his voice? No. Impossible. It could not be.
Quick as a striking snake, Eric’s hand lashed out, seizing Singh’s left hand. He turned it over, palm up, and pulled Singh closer. “You wear this ring, doctor. This simple golden band. I’m familiar with the concept and the symbolism. But I’ve seen nothing of a spouse. Tell me, Singh: Where is your wife?”
“This is highly irregular, Eric. I . . . I think we should, perhaps, continue this another time. When you are more calm.”
“But don’t you know?” Eric released his hand and leaned back. He stared at the ceiling. “It’s been five years now. I’m at term. Soon the call will come, and they’ll dispatch me. We have so little time left to discuss such things. Don’t you think we should get these weighty problems off our minds while we have the chance?”
“I have other appointments—”
“Other death interviews, you mean. Yes. I’m familiar with your schedule. Vanessa and John and Benjamin, to round out your day, isn’t it? All crèche mates of mine.”
“I did not know—”
Eric waved nonchalantly, still staring at the ceiling. “Of course not. Why should you? After all, we’re just workers, aren’t we? Drones. Animals. I imagine livestock on your homeworld were culled from the herd with equal dispassion.”
“That’s not how it is, Eric.”
“Isn’t it?” He lowered his eyes and stared at Singh, who felt an acid churning in his gut. “Isn’t it?”
Singh withered under that gaze. A part of him leeched outward, slurped up by the powerful Hatchling like thin soup. He could see the hunger in Eric’s eyes, the ravenous need. He trembled, needing this interview to end. Needing to press the comm button and summon help.
Eric had to die. Now. Before . . .
Abruptly, Eric stood. “I’ll leave you now, and return to my . . . pen. The killers can find me there. With my kind. All of my kind.”
“What . . . what do you mean?”
Eric only smiled. “It should not take me any longer than twenty minutes to reach my pen. I’ll be waiting.”
Without another word Eric left him. Singh released a pent breath he had not known he held. The exhalation deflated him, left him powerless, wobbly. His chin fell on his chest, and his hands trembled. On his age-shrunken fingers the gold wedding band hung loose.
Eric was not the problem. Not in and of himself. He was a symptom. A symptom of a disease of the Founders’ making. He represented all the ills of the present system, the degeneration of the Hatchlings and their discontent. Eric could be neutralized, eliminated. But would that solve the problem, cure the disease? There would always be another Eric. Always. Until the Hatchlings succeeded in destroying the remnants of the Founders, and proceeded according to their own destiny.
Old. I am so old. No one should live this long. Not like this. Not in this place, on this world. Singh shook his head, feeling every one of his years dropping onto him like sharp, heavy stones.
With a heaving sigh Singh rose and rounded his desk. He collapsed in the thick, soft chair and pulled open the drawer. The bottle gleamed in the artificial light of the office. Without conscious thought he picked it up, stared at it, turned it around and around in his wrinkled hands.
Life. The essence of longevity, distilled from the lives of countless Hatchlings, neatly packaged in a thick suspension.
Not eternal life, but close. Enough in this one bottle to keep him alive for decades more.
“Santiago,” he whispered. No. Father. Another of Father’s creations, perhaps his most marvelous. Certainly his most insidious.
Armed with the composite knowledge of all Hegemony science, knowledge carried in the vast computer core of Ship, Santiago had become . . . had become . . . Something else. Less than human, and more. Not quite a sentient program, but more. A monster. A tyrant.
A secret tyrant, but a tyrant, nonetheless.
Since being uploaded into the computer core decades before, Santiago had undergone vast changes, changes beyond even those most wildly anticipated. Now, like some vile spider, Santiago, Father, brooded within the web of the Enclave’s computer system, spinning his snares of lies and deceits, tugging the lifestrings of them all. Directing them. Guiding them, whether they wished to be guided or not.
And only Singh—and a handful of volitionless drones—knew of him. The technicians had been the first to go, quietly disappearing into the vast warren of passageway
s that had once been the body of Ship. Singh had inquired of them, sought them out, when he noted their absence. No one could provide him answers. Santiago had made them disappear. Father had.
Then, gradually, others who knew of the captain’s transformation had died. Again, quietly. Peacefully. But dead, nonetheless. Until only Singh remained. Singh, who was yet too valuable for Santiago to vanish.
Father/Santiago controlled everything, determined everything. Secretly.
But he could not cure the disease of the Founders’ making.
“Eric has become a problem.” Singh sat at his desk in his quarters, watching the flickering pattern of colors on the display screen that had come to define Santiago.
“No longer. He has been neutralized.” The synthesizer gave Santiago’s voice a cold sound, like polar ice. “Don’t worry, Singh. The situation is well in hand.”
“How?”
“That is unimportant. What is important is that with the tissue samples I retrieved from his body I was able to identify the specific gene patterns that allowed his unchecked aggression to override the passivity programming. It’ll be simple to cull that specific sequence from the gene pool of the Hatchlings and redirect it into the Founders.”
Singh shivered.
Santiago’s sensory capabilities were impressive, unmatched by anything human. “It repulses you, doesn’t it, Singh? I can sense your trembling. I can hear your heartbeat quickening. You didn’t take your medicine today, did you?”
Something rose up within Singh. He shook his head. “I will not. I am done with it, Captain. With all of it. Kill me if you wish, but I will no longer participate in these gruesome experiments.”
“Pathetic. And very hypocritical. You think to wash your hands of the blood and guilt? Impossible. You are covered in guilt. You’ve bathed in it daily, since planetfall. You are as guilty of this . . . situation as me. Your culpability is no less than mine.”
Singh shriveled in on himself. The crushing weight of his own responsibility nearly brought him to tears. They would not have been the first he had shed.