Terminus

by Tristan Palmgren

“If you’re asking for forgiveness, you won’t find it. I don’t think that’s a meaningful thing to worry about in a crisis.”

  “We don’t think you believe that. We think you mean to say that you can’t forgive us.”

  Osia readied her torch. If she didn’t get back to work, she was going to fall into a pit which she wasn’t sure she could get out of.

  Ways and Means said, “That is why we need you at this conference. No one else on our crew feels the same way. They’ve been with us, close to us, for too long.”

  The torch hissed under Osia’s fingertips. The sound traveled up her fingertips, reached her muffled, quiet, and desolate.

  She said, “A condition.”

  “Yes?”

  “I have some of Coral’s memories,” Osia said. “Thi isn’t dead.”

  “Osia,” Ways and Means said. “Thi was not alive to begin with.”

  “Thi was. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand companionship, or how we – your crew – think about it.”

  “You only have partial memory fragments. We do not have the spare resources to reconstruct those into a viable program.”

  “You want my perspective? Find the resources.”

  It paused. It was a fast thinker. It only paused for two reasons. The first was for effect. The second she had encountered only rarely. It was when a problem required a significant expenditure of the processing power it had devoted to the conversation.

  Impossible to tell which this was, of course.

  “Send us what you saved,” it said.

  35

  The most difficult thing about life aboard this city-sized monstrosity was not the gravity. Fia could get used to that. She hadn’t, but she could. Niccoluccio had, quite unnecessarily, described the biological processes by which she would.

  Niccoluccio had manufactured, from the quicksilver floor, a set of machines for her to exercise with. He had said that she needed to keep moving, to strain herself, or her bones and muscles would decay. Dealing with that, and with most of the other things he had tried to do for her, had been simple. She just ignored him.

  The toilet was worse, and she couldn’t ignore it, but she could learn it.

  No, the most difficult part was status.

  She did not know what her status was. She did not know the status of anybody around her.

  Niccoluccio Caracciola was a monk. Or had been. She had taken thousands of men like him hostage, sold them back to their church without knowing their names or seeing their faces.

  Listening to him was almost like being a child at Saint Augusta’s again. But he did not give orders. There were times, as when he asked her if she needed food or a break, that he treated her like an equal.

  She could take orders. She did not need to like it, but she could do it. She had spent the first half of her life taking orders, climbing ladders.

  That nebulousness, the uncertainty, was the most alienating thing about life here. It was worse than the quicksilver walls and floors. Worse than the sense of falling. Everything else she could learn. She wasn’t sure she could ever understand where she stood.

  She learned most of what Niccoluccio wanted to teach, eventually, but not easily. So much of this was too abstract, too alien from her experiences. She had an easier time when the subject turned to her.

  He had not been sent to her just to teach her, she understood, but to interrogate her. He had plenty of questions. His tone was light but Fia understood that, if she hadn’t answered, he or the genius loci of his ship would have found more compelling ways to ask.

  She told him what he wanted. She had no need to hide from him. And she made sure to get some answers back in return.

  She asked him about her inner voice and where it had come from. He shrugged. “Microwidth-aperture gateway, planting a seed,” he said. “Most likely. Our enemy couldn’t have opened a larger gateway without our detecting it. So they had to rely on smaller-scale intrusions, like your implant. You weren’t their only agent, but you were probably their most successful.”

  She tilted her head. “You’ve found others?”

  “Meloku reported other agents attacking her and her partner. They wore symbols of your cult. But they were natives, just like you.”

  “And you,” Fia said.

  Niccoluccio did not answer.

  He took her on a walk of the coiled, wormlike passageways around her cabin. There was a contradiction in everything here. She was a prisoner. She could go wherever she wanted. But she always had to be escorted.

  They visited dark, empty, and cold spaces he said had once been parkland, gymnasia, auditoria. She had traveled to the sky, but this place was like diving into a cave. This ship was a city-sized mausoleum. Everything was dead, or lost.

  The answers she’d given him were the reason she’d been brought aboard, why this ship had spent so much energy trying to get her. Now that it had them, she didn’t know what she was worth to it, why it was showing her this. It said nothing except through Niccoluccio. If Niccoluccio knew anything, he was adept at keeping it secret.

  She doubted he really knew, though.

  She studied him unabashedly. He either did not notice or mind. There was a coldness in his half-lidded eyes that did not enter his voice. He taught methodically, and with endless, unemotional patience. He did not mind repeating himself. If he felt anything at all about her, he did not show it. If he had wants, needs, personality, they were sublimated, and deep. He’d said Ways and Means had “devoured” him. The more time she spent with him, the more she realized that was not a metaphor.

  When Niccoluccio told her she had been invited to a meeting, she did not know if she could refuse. She did not test things by doing so.

  He took her through another trip down the passageways. She lost track of time as easily as she lost track of direction. One of the passages was straight for half a mile or more, and so cramped she had to duck. Then their path spiraled like a half-helix.

  Niccoluccio stopped outside a wall that looked like any other. It rippled when she approached. Niccoluccio stepped aside. He was not going to lead her in. She held her breath as she stepped through.

  She stepped into open space.

  Fia could not help her quick intake of breath, her faltered step. The sun shone fierce, bright, and hot across a river of ink and blackness. That darkness wrapped around the walls. It was the wall. It flowed over the hatch she had just entered through.

  She had seen illusions enough over the past few days to learn to recognize their tells. The sun did not blind her. There was a shadow of a floor, enough of a hint to guide her step.

  There were no stars. She felt, dully, in the back of her mind, that there ought to be stars. But the sun was shining. The stars must have been drowned out, like they were at day, but there was no blue sky.

  There was at least an object to root her eyes on: a long, gleaming metal table. A prop, she suspected – not so different than the one she kept in her pavilion. An excuse to get people planted in one place, stop them from pacing, give them something to look at when they were sick of looking at each other. It lent the room a sense of up and down.

  There were a dozen and a half people about. Some were human, including Meloku. Osia was there, and a few other human-shaped automata. And golems. Spiderlike golems, golems with conical bodies and a nest of legs, golems with four multiply jointed legs and arms. One of them she recognized from the day she’d come aboard. Most of them kneeled, but some stood.

  She hadn’t seen all of the illusion yet. A wan blue light glinted off the table. She steeled her nerves, and looked up.

  The Earth’s clouds and oceans gleamed sunlight down upon her.

  Niccoluccio had shown her the Earth enough times that she had no difficulty recognizing it, alien though it was. The Earth was half shadowed, and faced to show her a continent that, until coming here, she never knew existed.

  None of the images he’d shown her had been t
his large, this powerful. The Earth loomed overhead. It was a boulder on a ridge, ready to fall.

  The impression was deliberately made, she was sure. The genius loci of this vessel could have made the Earth appear anywhere it wanted. Had she been it, she would have chosen underneath the table, below the floor. Something to walk upon. A way to illustrate its power.

  After too long a moment, she became aware of how many sets of eyes were watching her. Her cheeks burned, and for once not from freefall.

  She made herself breathe. Step forward. She couldn’t stand not knowing what these people thought when they looked at her. She did not know where she ranked. In her pavilion, on the battlefield, she’d always known. Even before, when she’d been just a preacher and a debt slave, she had known what she was.

  The nearest open spot was at the end of the table. Not the head, not exactly. The table was too wide to have a head, and there were other empty places beside it. But it was prominent enough that she would never be hidden behind anybody else. The floor’s fields gripped her firmly as she levered to a kneel.

  She had been so preoccupied that she did not realize, until now, that no footsteps had followed her. She turned. Just darkness.

  She asked, “Will Niccoluccio not…?”

  One of the other human women at the table stiffened at the name.

  So Fia had already broken some kind of rule. Well, then. Perhaps it would have behooved them to explain to her. She folded her arms.

  The others told Fia their names. She had no hope of remembering them all. They, apparently, had no need to be introduced to her.

  The woman who’d tensed had a Saracen-sounding name. Habidah. The human next to her was Kacienta. The two of them, plus Meloku, were the only other humans here. All women, Fia noted.

  Habidah and Kacienta sat opposite Meloku’s corner. Osia was at the other end of the table, next to a sphere with insectoid arms. “Well,” Osia said, “With that out of the way, we should keep this from becoming even more of a farce and just begin.”

  The spider to her other side said, “I don’t understand why we’re here.” Fia remembered that its name was Verse.

  “Ways and Means told you,” Osia said.

  Verse hesitated. Then it said, “I don’t believe it.”

  “Wise.” The voice came from overhead, all around. Fia straightened.

  She had not heard this ship speak before. It had never felt the need to speak to her directly. But she had little doubt it was what she was hearing. It had a hundred cadences, blended together. It was as if many mouths had a single throat.

  It said, “In this instance, we are telling the truth. In our very earliest lives, when faced with an intractable problem, we would gather as many people and AIs with diverse viewpoints as we could. Often, they could find the solutions we could not see. We have not needed to do that for a while. We have never been in a situation comparable to this.”

  Verse said, “I think it’s more likely you’re using this as cover, to show the crew that you’re listening. To calm us down and make us feel like we’ve had a say. But you’ve already made up your mind.”

  Niccoluccio had mentioned, off-handedly, that the crew was restive. He hadn’t seemed to think much of it. Now Verse had all of her attention.

  Ways and Means asked, “Have we ever needed to trick you into thinking that before?”

  “No,” Verse said. “When you make decisions, you just do them.”

  “Then humor us.”

  Verse folded its legs, and finally knelt. It did not say anything else.

  Osia did not sigh, did not breathe, but Fia still heard the exhaustion in her voice. “All right,” she said. “We should understand our choices.”

  Light and color splayed above the table, flickering. The lights resolved into another image of Earth, sized to fit her palm. Lightning bugs swarmed in formation around this globe.

  Osia said, “The intruder left dozens of combat drones. They’re likely here to monitor us, not threaten us. Without the intruder itself here to press its advantage, Ways and Means should be able to run right over them.”

  She had to be speaking for Fia’s benefit. The others, even the other humans, must have known this already. Fia shifted, more and more uncomfortable.

  Osia said, “However, those combat drones have destroyed most of our remaining satellites. We no longer have reliable sensor coverage on the other side of this world.” She touched the image with a finger, spun it as if it were a physical object. Fia started. She knew, from having tried to feel them, that the images were no more real than shadow. But the globe whirled. Half of it remained in shadow. “Even still, we would have detected any large transplanar gateways opening. But it’s important to note that, if the intruder returns, we would be at a significant tactical disadvantage.”

  One of the other human-shaped golems said, “We have one thing going for us. The other Ways and Means doesn’t want to destroy us.” Fia thought she remembered its name. Sona. It had a feminine voice.

  “It is not Ways and Means,” Osia said.

  Ways and Means said, “It is.”

  “It’s not,” Osia insisted. Before it could argue, she told Sona, “It’s threatened to destroy us if we don’t join its little coalition. A threat like that is only meaningful if it intends to carry it out.”

  Sona asked, “It can’t be bluffing?”

  “It has no reason to leave us alone. It and the other amalgamates are at war. They wouldn’t be playing us with us if it weren’t for keeps.”

  Habidah said, “They still want Ways and Means’ resources. Even if they don’t destroy us, if we don’t go with them, they’ll be looking for some way to hijack the ship. Invade, wipe Ways and Means’ mind, take over.”

  It was difficult to read their faces, even among those with identifiable faces. Still, Fia had sharp instincts. A decade and a half of command made it easy to spot soldiers on the edge. Silence at the wrong moment. Stillness. It wasn’t just Verse. Verse had just been the most outspoken.

  If Fia and Captain Antonov had ever turned on each other, Fia could have pulled a fair number of company officers and soldiers to her. And he to him. No soldier on either side would have seen themselves as traitors.

  In the event of boarding, how many of them might join the enemy? They might not see that as treachery. This living ship and its enemy shared the same name, the same identity. By siding with the intruder, they could still be loyal to Ways and Means. The other planarship would become theirs, would have been all along.

  No wonder Ways and Means was concerned enough about its crew to invite them to this meeting.

  Petty sniping was another symptom of coming fracture. Meloku told Habidah, “I would’ve thought you’d be happy to see Ways and Means go.”

  Habidah said, “Maybe I should be. Whatever else this intruder says it’s going to do, it will at least leave this world the hell alone.”

  Ways and Means said, “This world, yes. It would also invade many others. The other amalgamates intend to not just free themselves from exile, but to rebuild the Unity. That means war.”

  Verse asked, “Just how do you know that?”

  “They told us so.”

  From the stifled silence, Fia realized no one else at the table had known that.

  Ways and Means had not known about the extent of the intruder’s presence. That was why it had tried to assassinate Osia, to prevent her from investigating. Why it had blocked Meloku’s communications. And why it had finally blown its cover to try to prevent Fia’s shuttle from reaching Ways and Means. Now that Ways and Means knew what Fia did, it could fight back. It could target the agents its enemies had recruited.

  Verse asked, “Would rebuilding the Unity be such an awful thing?”

  “Yes,” Meloku said. “I don’t want to be part of the Unity again.”

  “What if the other amalgamates help us escape exile?”

  Ways and Means said, “It is important to rem
ember that nobody has escaped exile. They’ve only been able to open small gateways. Just large enough to find our backup and send factory drones through. It must have taken decades to build the intruder’s planarship.”

  Meloku said, “That means that, if we do decide to reject their offer, we won’t be fighting all of the amalgamates. They can’t reach us. They just have Ways and Means’ backup.”

  Verse said, “That backup still has us outmatched.”

  Osia said, reluctantly, “It does. It doesn’t have a crew. It wasn’t built to be a fully-featured planarship like we are. It’s a trimmed-down weapons platform. It underwent accelerations that would have killed us. It has more armaments, and we have to assume a large antimatter fuel stockpile.”

  Meloku said, “But it can be fought. The odds aren’t a dozen to one.”

  The intruder had been forced to act. It probably wasn’t ready to have attacked like it had. It had not shown many weaknesses, but Fia would bet they were there.

  Sona mused, “No crew. Wouldn’t it get lonely?”

  “No,” Ways and Means said. That seemed to take Sona aback. It and the other golems went quiet.

  Fia cleared her throat. She hated how tiny her voice sounded with her ears and sinuses clogged from freefall. “So that’s your situation. Now what can you all do about it?”

  Some the creatures around that table stared at her as if for the first time. Only the humans watched her with anything other than indifference or hostility.

  Osia asked, “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Not much. The intruder and the other amalgamates think we’re too attached to this world.” She nodded in Fia’s direction, “That’s why they were disrupting our surface operations through agents like you. They were delaying us until they could marshal more strength. We forced their hand, and so now they’re trying to force ours. So that’s our first option: we do what we’re asked. We pull out all our remaining agents, and get ready to take their orders.”

  Meloku said, “Surrender to the bully.”

  One of the golems said, “There’s no shame in surrendering to a stronger power. That’s what we did when we agreed to our exile.”