Ancestral Machines

by Michael Cobley

  This situation is crazy, she thought. Pyke’s turned into a lethargic basketcase and Mojag’s having a gradual meltdown, no doubt caused by the copy of Oleg that he has in his head. And everyone’s looking to me for leadership! Damnation, we are in trouble!

  “Something new is happening!”

  Ancil had slowed and was looking up. The sky was changing again. The churning greys and silver stria of hyperspace were melting into each other, the vast eddies and swirls flattening, the entire convulsive embrace of it darkening, deeper and darker–and suddenly the wide blackness of space snapped back in, scatters of stars clearly visible through the rosy veil.

  “How long was that?” Dervla said. “Twenty minutes? Twenty-five?”

  Ancil was checking his factab. “Twenty-three and four seconds.”

  “That’s only long enough for a jump of about fifteen light years,” she said. “Can this be the destination…?”

  The stars began to slide sideways, as if the planet was being turned. At the same time something swung smoothly up from the horizon to loom vastly into view. At first glance Dervla thought she was seeing at an angle a widely separated formation of ships, huge ships, set out in a perfect grid array that curved oddly away. Then a bright radiance bloomed on the western horizon and the array of distant objects shone as its relative position began to change. Dervla gazed from array to horizon and back, trying to take it all in. The planet was being steered towards the curved array of bright, round objects, moved level with it, positioned, and realisation struck.

  “Those are worlds,” she said. “Oh, that’s amazing…”

  Everybody else was staring too.

  “There must be… scores,” said Win.

  “And we’re being fitted into an empty slot,” Dervla said.

  Surveying the incredible sight, she counted nine rows in the array, then made a rough estimate of the worlds visible along one of them, then tried to reckon how many were strung along each encircling chain, then added them up…

  “About 250?” she said.

  “More like 290, actually,” said Pyke. “Maybe 300.”

  At the sound of his voice she whirled to see him standing next to Ancil, switching between glancing down at the factab’s oval display and peering up at the grid of worlds now half filling the sky.

  “You sound okay,” she said, suspicion fuelling a growing irritation. “Got over that little tantrum, did we? Have you been faking it all this time? I’ll bet you have you—”

  “Faking? I’ll have you know that I was distraught, beside myself with sheer unmitigated anguish at the way they stole my ship… well, not so much anguish as a right steaming fury. Yes, I did kinda lose it, really felt like I was blowing my top after seeing all our plans fall apart, so I went off on a wee rampage and was gonna hand over my guns until Kref decked me.”

  “So you’ve been back to your normal egomaniacal self since you came round,” Dervla said. “Back down there? And did you enjoy seeing us worrying ourselves sick over you?”

  Pyke sighed. “Everyone did their job, Dervla, and that was in no small part due to yourself. I’ve always wanted to see how you’d manage under pressure and then this opportunity presented itself–it was too good to pass up. So now that you’ve had a taste of command you have an idea of what it’s about, y’know, if another job offer comes yer way, like.”

  “You let me think you were having a… a breakdown or something.” She paused as Pyke arched an eyebrow and glanced over at Mojag who was standing off to one side, hands linked behind his head as he muttered to himself. Mojag was a friend and crewmate, and it was disturbing to see him in this state, but it didn’t lessen Dervla’s resentment at Pyke’s fakery. Then she stopped and wondered… was this the fakery? Was this just a desperate piece of face-saving, something to avoid the embarrassment of admitting that he lost it?

  She inhaled deeply, exhaled, and forced herself into something like composure.

  “In the circumstances, Captain,” she said, “we had better get focused on survival. Could be that the new owners will be along shortly to check out their new property.”

  Pyke nodded, glancing once more at Ancil’s factab. “Some big damn pretty thing, this artificial solar system, eh? I mean, what kind of tech would you need to hold all these worlds in place?”

  Ancil lightly prodded several display emblems. “Well, chief, they’re capable of taking one of these planets, bundling it up in an inertia-dampening field, flying it through hyperspace, swapping it for a fresh one and bringing it back. My guess is they’re pretty far up the pecking order.” He gave Pyke a sidelong look and grin. “Good to see you back in the game, by the way.”

  Yes, Dervla thought. The boy’s game!

  Above and outwith, one final gentle gyring motion seemed to lock the world in place and left their surroundings in darkness once more. Overhead the roseate veil abruptly vanished, even as the early grey fingers of another daybreak spread slowly from the west. It was dawn on an unknown world, and all the other worlds that Dervla could see curving away in perfect regimentation.

  Right now, just give me one without Pyke on it and I’ll be the happiest girl alive.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The skies of the affray-world, Brayl, were troubled, threatening. Dark rain-clouds loomed low over the ruined canyon city, filtering the light to a brassy gloom. Out on the severed remnant of what had once been a cross-canyon bridge, Second Blade Akreen and his Shuroga scout awaited the Treneval leader, Livakaw. The dreg-bout had not gone well for the Treneval task-army: in the face of the Zavri onslaught it had fallen back to this final redoubt where, depleted and hemmed in, their leader had requested a truce-parley. When recordings of this clash were replayed all across the Warcage it would amply demonstrate the enduring might and irrevocable judgement of the Shuskar Gun-Lords.

  “He delays, invincible one,” the Shuroga scout said in her sibilant voice. “He insults you by making you wait, which is an affront—”

  “He knows that an ordained death decree hangs over him,” Akreen said. “For one so condemned, the import of lesser censures is minor at best. Besides, skulker, the insults of traitors mean nothing to me, pointless noises from a worthless source.”

  “We know how to deal with betrayers on Kuloz,” the Shuroga muttered, hunching her skinny shoulders beneath battered hide armour. “An arm, a leg and an eye, to begin with…”

  “Enough,” Akreen said, pointing with one silvery, emblem-adorned hand. “He comes.”

  Livakaw was taller and burlier than most Trenevali and wore an impressive cloak of shiny black chol fur across his wide shoulders. He was bareheaded and otherwise clad in the rough grey leathers of a Treneval ranker, apart from the segmented metal gauntlets on his large hands.

  Akreen had pondered briefly on how to configure his bodyframe, swiftly settling on the symbols of punishment. His arms, chest and legs bore their usual archaic battle-armour skinforms but they were now covered in the emblems and glyphs of the Shuskar Lords, the Redeemed Order of Steel, the Grand Escalade and the Chamber of Judgement, as well as the sigils of the holdworld viceroys and the banner-badges of those task-armies whose loyalty to the Lords was unblemished and unquestioned. In addition he had lengthened his legs and adapted his shoulders to resemble the formal robes of the Chamber Judges, which included the crossed hilts of execution swords jutting up at the back. Akreen wanted to be the embodiment of the Warcage in all its dutiful and honourable glory, the personification of the inexorable fate which had come for Livakaw. Brayl would be his tomb.

  And as Livakaw approached with a steady, heavy tread, one of Akreen’s precursors chose that moment to bestow an utterance.

  [To the cooking pot the yosig-bird came, self-plucked and trussed!–Zi]

  Maintaining his outward composure took some effort. It was Zivolin, of course. If any one of his seven precursors was likely to violate the in-combat silence vow it would be Zivolin. As some of the others offered up remonstrances, Akreen closed them all off by focus
ing on the traitor Livakaw who came to a halt several paces away.

  “Thank you, Second Blade, for agreeing to this truce,” said the Treneval leader, his voice guttural and hoarse. “Our collective gratitude for allowing an exchange is—”

  Akreen cut him off. “The bouts of the Grand Escalade, even the dreg-bouts, have clearly set-out rules. My acknowledgement of their primacy here has no bearing on emotive issues. Gratitude has no place here, only the matters under discussion. What are they?”

  Livakaw gave him a heavy-lidded look, dark eyes sunken beneath a furrowed brow. “Clemency,” he said. “Not for myself, obviously—”

  “In accordance with the dreg-bout ordinances, all who take the field are considered combat effectives. The Chamber judgement also provides the following rules of engagement: if you are killed or captured within the first ten minutes of the final bout stage, then one quarter of Trenevali effectives selected by lot will face execution; if you are killed or captured after the lapse of ten minutes then one half of Trenevali effectives selected by lot will face execution; if in either case, after your death or capture, the Trenevali task-army continues to fight then all will face execution without exception.” Akreen paused, glanced back along the canyon wall to where the shiny ranks of his half-battalion of Zavri veterans awaited. “Or you could immediately surrender yourself to my custody and only a tenth of the Trenevali would face execution. What say you?”

  Livakaw nodded thoughtfully. “Correct me if I am wrong, Second Blade Akreen, but I do not believe that the Trenevali and the Zavri have ever faced each other across the battlefield, not in all the many millennia of the Grand Escalade. Or am I wrong?”

  Akreen pondered this, sent a query-scrute scurrying through his siloed memories and found confirmation of the Treneval leader’s comment, along with a strange then-mote.

  “Your observation is correct,” Akreen said. “The Treneval task-army never rose above the 32nd grade while the Zavri have never fallen below 19th. Treneval, however, has always been loyal to the Shuskar Lords, unwavering in their duty across the centuries. Records also show that the Treneval holdworld sent several task-armies to fight for the Shuskar Lords during the Beshephis Insurrection, acquitting themselves with great honour.”

  “We still sing songs in their memory,” said Livakaw. “Their valour lives on.”

  “Yet by your actions you have sullied their name,” Akreen said. “The Trenevali honour was unmarred until just days ago when undeniable proof came to light that you, their general, had conspired with the rebellious Chainer vermin. Just in the last hour, the Treneval viceroy has repudiated your actions and stripped you of all titles, subsequent to the Iron Chiefs proclaiming the Sever Shun against you. Actions like yours seem insane, yet to my eyes you do not look like one deranged.”

  “Insanity comes in many colours, Second Blade,” said Livakaw. “Like consigning millions of thinking, feeling beings to short lives of brute drudgery and planned ignorance. Or like channelling untutored youngers into the triumph camps which indoctrinate them for combat, for the bouts, to die on some affray-world far from their kin for no good reason—”

  “Underworkers are by nature fitted to their labour,” said Akreen. “I was wrong–you now begin to sound like one gone insane, not unlike the Chainer vermin to whom you passed on vital secrets.”

  Livakaw shrugged. “I do not expect you to understand these things. Your eyes show you only the things that they’ve been taught to see.” He gave Akreen a narrow look. “Indeed, I have heard that the Zavri enjoy a peculiar form of immortality, that the spirits of your ancestors live on within that gleaming metal flesh of yours and that your own spirit will live on after you cease to be–is this so?”

  Akreen heard the stirrings at the back of his thoughts, irritation from Drolm, indignation from Iphan, the grand outrage of Casx, Togul’s self-important disdain, Zivolin’s seditious glee, the cold malice of Rajeg. As usual from Gredaz, eldest and most elusive, there was nothing.

  And for a single moment Akreen felt a strange urge to confide in this criminal, to explain how the process of scission created the next generation of Zavri and how only one in a brood would end up carrying the self-patterns of the precursors, the lineal ancestors. How that responsibility conferred the advantage of having all those life experiences to draw on, and how this could cause resentment in his brood divisiblings…

  Suddenly appalled to find himself thinking these thoughts, he quickly erased them from awareness and addressed the traitor with the appropriate level of scorn.

  “My forebears oversee my every decision and act,” Akreen said. “Their guidance safeguards the honour of my line. Clearly, you hold your ancestors in scant regard.”

  “The holy walkers say that the souls of dead Trenevali are sent to be tasted in the mouths of the Night Gods–the balance of purity and taint in our essence determines our fate in the Shroudlife. When I meet my ancestors I shall at least know if my truth is the same as theirs.”

  [Tribal primitives!–To][A heroic insolence!–Zi][Have him flayed–Ra]

  Ignoring these backbrain mutters, Akreen considered the Treneval leader’s response and felt a slight echo of the envy that picked at him whenever he encountered one of his divisiblings. None of them, after all, had to share their minds with the dead.

  “Your replies are not relevant to the matter under discussion,” he said. “I have made clear the adjudged outcomes–what say you?”

  Smiling, Livakaw glanced thoughtfully up at the decrepit ruins of the canyon city. “Originally our dreg-bout adversaries were to be the Tephoy, against whom we judged we would have a better-than-even chance. But not long after gating here a day ago an Escalade official brought word of the verdict from the Chamber, and then the decision to allow the dreg-bout to be played out–with the Tephoy replaced by the more formidable Zavri. My rankers were a little surprised but their resolve was unshaken and they looked forward to pitting themselves against your shining legion. That has not changed. We will see the bout through… and we will try to make you remember us.”

  “Then there is nothing more to say.”

  The Treneval leader nodded, turned away and retraced his steps back to where the remnants of his task-army were positioned by crumbling walls and sagging floors. Akreen’s Shuroga scout chuckled as the burly figure receded.

  “Hah–perhaps a vestige of honour yet remains in his putrid mind,” said the scout.

  “The judges of the Chamber have spoken,” Akreen said. “A traitor shall die this day.”

  “Amid bloody slaughter,” the Shuroga scout said with relish.

  And the scout was right. On his return to the canyonside territory held by his Zavri half-battalion, Akreen ordered the maul platoons to advance. This was a close-quarters dreg-bout, no energy or projectile weapons permitted, so the maul platoons were armed with pulverhammers to break down walls and saw-glaives for hand-to-hand combat. The hammers pounded, the floors shook underfoot, and the Zavri crashed through, heralded by clouds of dust.

  Battle was joined. The Trenevali were valiant and showed no fear, only their blood and viscera. They were skilled with light to medium weapons and armour but they could not stand against the superior speed and strength of the variable Zavri physique. They were not without a certain tactical cunning, however–twice, solitary Zavri were cut off and doused with viscous flammable mixtures that clung and burnt at a high temperature. At the same time the Trenevali ambushers wound lengths of wire around the burning Zavri’s midsection, arms and legs, obviously thinking that they would be weakened by the heat. But the flaming mixture did not burn hot enough and the ambushers died.

  Akreen led the assault from the centre of his forces, monitoring the progress of the forward platoons, and examining the bodies of the enemy to see if Livakaw had fallen. Once, as they passed through a gallery lined with heavy pillars, masking covers fell away from two columns and a pair of Trenevali leaped out, hurling spears. One was snatched in mid-air by one of Akreen’s guards, the
other was deflected by the arm-shield of another guard. The two attackers were cut to pieces without hesitation. And through it all Akreen’s precursors sang battle fugues in joyful chorus–they revelled in these moments, the chance to live through him and taste even the meagre shadow of glory.

  After the first ten minutes of combat operation, no evidence of Livakaw’s death had emerged. By the twentieth minute the Zavri progress along the canyonside corridors had slowed due to the defender tactic of shoring up entrances and walls with mounds of rubble and masonry. Faced with this, the assault platoons simply threw together ramps from the plentiful debris and broke through to the upper floors. The Trenevali had already laid some spring-loaded traps up there, along the likely approaches, but they caused only brief, annoying delays.

  After nearly thirty minutes of bloody, one-sided slaughter Akreen’s Shuroga scout came to him with news.

  “The end is near, invincible one,” she said. “The last of them and their timid leader have barricaded themselves into some ancient blasphemous shrine at the end of this level. There are no more stairs beyond it, no tunnels and no escape.”

  “How many still live?”

  “A handful, perhaps as many as ten. There are two entrances, both blocked with rubble and smashed furniture.” The scout twitched her nose. “I could smell oil, so they are planning a warm welcome.”

  Akreen shook his head. “The same failed tactic. Tell the maul platoons to get to work–bring that wall down, move in and crush them. Say that I want Livakaw taken alive if possible.”

  The scout chuckled and scurried off with the new orders.

  The pulverhammers were creating a thunderous, non-stop cacophony by the time Akreen and his command officers reached the shrine. Wide steps led up to a towering facade covered in an ornate frieze of coiling creatures arranged around three huge faces which time had ravaged and rendered unrecognisable. It was a venerable remnant from the canyon city’s lost past, its every carven glyph and creature carrying a message out of antiquity. Akreen took it all in with understanding and appreciation for a brief moment before ordering more platoons forward. The barricades at the entrances burst into flames just then but the besieging Zavri ignored them. As the pulverhammers battered down the entrance pillars, widening the gaps, others moved in to attack the burning debris and drag some of it out of the way.