by Kyte, Adrian
Roidon, un-hoisted from his shoulder a flamethrower, a weapon he had fabricated in the Kintra ship. And thus the irony: save for one minor modification, a design so ancient he guessed it hadn’t been used in centuries and knew would not be detected by the chamber’s defence systems. But he was just one figure amongst over a billion. What difference could he make?
He targeted junction boxes and power relay cables at the end of each row of pods. His flamethrower now a torch of blue only able to destroy the connections. He watched in trance-like fascination as each pod’s lights flickered red then went out, causing each one in a line to open revealing the plugged in metal humanoid forms. He tried to imagine how they would die in their virtual realm, how like in a dream the loss of input would be incorporated. Or was it really possible in these mechanized forms to come out of artificial reality without any decompression process and survive?
More continued to open, and the inhabitants all remained dead still. Except for one. The figure sat bolt upright, it even made Roidon flinch back. From a couple of metres away the figure turned seemingly to survey its environment. But then it appeared to be choking, retching, although this could not literally be possible without a gullet or any internal organs.
Roidon approached it, was about to turn the flame onto the figure when it collapsed. Death through neural shock, Roidon surmised. It may not have even been conscious. Ah, that word again, the word that scientists and philosophers alike still struggled with, would always struggle with, he suspected. It was a word that the Kintra would never comprehend; an irrelevant obsession of the sentient biological being, along with a need for authenticity; once you no longer felt authentic there really was no purpose, not when you took the time to consider it. But one thing Roidon had learnt after all his iterations: you carve out a sense of authenticity from a different type of stone, or if that fails then you build it from nothing, even if no one else will recognize it. But perhaps never for these human copies, when their very existence was recreated as an afterthought – a vague and synthetic sense of benevolence.
Well, here was where it all had to end. He fitted one of the five spare canisters and continued on. Of course, he would destroy no more than an infinitesimal fraction of the captured population. But that wasn’t the point; what he had done here was set an example to anyone else who may discover these abominations of life, still existing in this perpetually powered program, in whatever corrupt form remained.
And they would find what ever remained of him, perhaps with flamethrower still in hand. Then upload him.
* * *
80
‘Emergency,’ came a metallic voice she didn’t recognize ‘Impact imminent.’
It was vaguely like the ship’s computer; reduced in quality.
And then, regaining full awareness it struck her. They were heading for the Atlantic ocean, the view partly obscured by smoke.
‘Damage assessment!’
‘Critical,’ it answered. ‘All systems off li...’ It was as if it had expired its last vestige of power giving those dying words. The last that mattered.
Through the smoke there was nothing but ocean. Nothing she could do to stop it. At least it was light. She noticed the craft had extruded delta wings before rubber webbing expanded around her in a final act of preservation. Maybe it would give her minutes instead of seconds.
The thought crept into her head: so much time missed. Her personal chrono told her she’d been unconscious for a hundred and twenty-eight hours. Too long. And then the doubt. The Elusivers hadn’t succeeded; there would be no temporal erasure, only death.
What happened to the ship?
No power, the air was running out, and within minutes she would be poisoned by her own CO2. Maybe preferable to drowning. No time to investigate.
Then: is there an escape procedure? A parachute? She searched about. Could not find one. Perhaps Elusiver ships simply weren’t designed for even the possibility of fail. Well, either way it meant landing in the sea and probably dying from exposure if not drowning. So little time but so many thoughts rushing into her head.
She wondered how many other planets the Kintra had abandoned, just to decay. It was what countless invaders had done to nations throughout the centuries once they’d taken whatever resource they needed. Knowledge was always a valuable resource to plunder, but it had always seemed like a by-product of the spoils of war, never something sought out in isolation. Knowledge, data, memory – a life’s experience – all the same to the Kintra. All the same to hers and other such advanced species when the gloss of culture was removed. Yeah, she thought, just a veneer to give us the illusion of a special sentience.
The vessel impacted into the ocean with surprising ease – or at least lack of pain. Then the slow descent.
Zoraina considered the prospect of herself ending up forgotten and decayed. Unlike one of those simulations running in a substrate, she would have a conscious thought of its imminence. But if she survived, what was there here for her anyway? Just more loneliness. If there was any intelligent life, she had the technology to detect it – machine or biological – anything with a complex neuro system.
‘I really don’t want to die,’ she said. ‘Not like that. Not today,’ It was to no one in particular ... well, perhaps to someone who might understand. Funny, she mused, how at times like these when you really do sense the end is imminent, the notion of a higher all-seeing entity becomes remarkably compelling. It was as if all those decades of rational thought – the learning about physical processes that do not countenance a continuing afterlife – can just be sidelined so swiftly. Rational ideas all so inadequate now. Oh, how comfortable she could be with them when there was the prospect of living for a millennium; death was merely some distant notion from a mostly forgotten past. Even then you could back up your mind – a carbon copy, so you’d effectively be immortal. Just data elevated above its intrinsic value, its utility – as the Kintra would see it – to something amounting to a sentient life. In her B’tari form, just before her ‘transition’, it had been an option presented to her, which she refused. A mindscan backup; even the ethics of it were dubious. But it was just a last resort option. If it were available now would she take it? Maybe not. Very few recipients included a clause to reactivate the mind-state, unless certain conditions were met; those conditions were of course guided by the Temporal Directive – the now utterly irrelevant text for a bygone age of prosperity. Yes, to have the luxury of being able to pontificate over lesser species (not that this was ever formally expressed). What could it possibly have to say about times like these? Maybe she could access something apropos in her database to describing the situation.
Well, too late anyway. Darkening ocean. Faintly illuminated bubbles drifting up. Just residual exhaust, she reassured herself – grimly.
Vromp. The impact juddered Zoraina to almost knock her out. No sign of what had been hit but she imagined something sharp. Nothing to see. Whatever vestige of the ship’s external light remained had now faded, along with the inside. It had truly died; now invisible – an invisible coffin.
The cabin tilted followed by a gentle swaying. She scanned about for any sign of water coming through. Of course, if airtight then watertight. But soon that air would run out; already a giddiness had taken hold. No power meant not even a distress signal could be sent (as if that would make the slightest difference).
She still had use of her PDU. It warned of the dangerously low air to CO2 ratio. It told from the dimming ink-black external light levels how deep she was going. The sea bed was over three kilometres, another two and a half to go.
No sensation of descent, just the final blacking ocean to pitch dark.
‘Help,’ she heard herself say, a voice now like a lost child knowing deep down there was no one to help.
Her PDU interpreted the request. ‘How may I be of assistance?’
‘Give me the best escape scenario.’ A shot to nothing, she thought.
‘Cannot analyse all factors fr
om this sense base,’ it told her in its impassive tones.
Then, just as the cabin was beginning to swirl. ‘Air! Spacesuit. There must be one. Where?’
‘Two metres at seven o’clock from your facing.’
Normally she’d know exactly the direction but now disorientated, with only the PDU’s light, she ordered: ‘Show directions.’
An arrow seemingly projected across the cabin, like a hallucination in the dark. Zoraina staggered what seemed much farther than two metres to reach an embedded junction box. There was some kind of hand pad console. To her surprise it did respond to her hand by opening.
The helmet! She fumbled with what should be a simple task of placing it over her head. Finally in place; a soft rubber seal enclosed around her neck. It must have sensed her condition for there was the relief of air gushing into her lungs. Coherent thoughts coming back. Yes, the plan. There was the beginning of a plan.
She went over to the viewscreen, pointed her PDU outward in the direction of the ocean floor. ‘Scan for signs of EM activity.’ Then she waited.
‘Scan indicates EM consistent with an electrical power supply approximately one point six kilometres south east and eight hundred metres below.’
And so as the ship continued its descent into dangerous pressure, Zoraina got into the EVA suit. It was oddly comforting to know there were no better options for survival than this. Yet, as she stood facing the viewscreen, the doubts started plaguing her. Within the next ten minutes this vessel would hit the bottom; already an unnerving creaking as if along some invisible rivets. The bind was: if she stayed here until hitting the ocean floor it seemed unlikely she’d be any more than a crushed ball (she imagined the ship as an egg crushed in a large hand); if she left ASAP would this suit protect her? The design wasn’t at all familiar. Maybe the only real choice was between different methods of dying, the quickest and least painful.
Except, maybe, to be presented with that choice was a privilege. Her thoughts racing now. Death, in the accounts she’d seen, would come often with a sense of failure: why had this or that treatment failed after so many centuries of success? And so it was reached in a sense of denial, after a fight that seemed eminently winnable. Of course there were those who felt they’d already lived too long, had nothing more to experience. She tried to imagine ever reaching that point, wondered how was it possible to know what wearying effects another few centuries of life with its inevitable repetition would leave? Here, after a not too unreasonable life of albeit a mere thirty-eight years, she could die in a way that was predictable and swift – surely what every b’tari ideally sought.
Yet she felt a strong urge to survive; perhaps a basic instinct that drives every healthy creature when, beyond their control, they saw the threat of death.
She activated the headlamp and searched for any available equipment. In a storage compartment she found a large drill; probably designed to escape this vessel in the event of a crash. Then: some kind of portable generator. It clipped on to the suit’s front circular panel. A simple button to push and then: a metal substance similar to mercury started flowing along the arms and legs, spreading throughout the entire suit. It became stiffer to bend but not impossible. Could a scenario like this have been anticipated? There are billions of known planets with water – oceans; it didn’t seem beyond credibility that there’d be a contingency for a crash landing. Or maybe just the intense pressure of more hostile worlds like Venus. Whatever. For the first time there was hope of survival, turning what was becoming a serene acceptance of dying into heart-racing anxiety. Funny how you can adapt to such contrasting outcomes, she mused.
Zoraina was presented with an in-helmet display, her PDU core ported via a remote interface so now text appeared in B’tar. She selected the option for maximum strength, but even that was not enough to push open the hatch, now under pressure from nearly three kilometres depth. Eventually she had to use the drill. A shriek of grinding metal on initial contact. Only after about five minutes did the first crack appear. It spread rapidly and forked as if made from toughened glass. She released the pressure not more than a second before it all collapsed.
Water rushed in with such intensity she thought it would knock her unconscious if not damage the suit. But everything held including her full awareness.
Committed now, she thought.
* * *
81
‘You are hallucinating, Torbin,’ the creature insisted in its expressionless voice, now static before him, its chrome-effect legs reflecting the changing phases of null space, beige to puce.
But he wasn’t. He knew what he was seeing, had even once been in the guise of one of them. To what he initially saw as a large metal arachnid but now appeared smaller and beetle-like Torbin said, ‘There’s no point maintaining this pretence, I know you too well. Whatever, psychoactive chemical you’ve given everyone it’s warn off me.’
‘Torbin, you are not well, there are still residual effects from the implant.’
‘No, the implant was just an insurance policy, fall-back in case your mass hypnosis began to fail. Well, looks like it has.’
‘I am hereby authorized to administer medical intervention.’
Torbin backed away, turned and ran out. If the Kintra really wanted him to believe it was merely a service drone, it would not pursue him. Torbin didn’t check to see whether it did. He ran towards the cargo bay, just hoping there would be some craft he could take.
There were several: the first did not respond to a voice command or hand-print, the second, third and fourth likewise would not open their hatch. It had always felt like a futile act. When he got to the fifth and smallest craft Torbin heard a voice: ‘Where can you possibly go? There is no chance of survival.’ The voice seemed to be coming from his head. But when he looked round, all he could see was a service drone.
Trust your mind not your senses, he told himself. And to the creature he said: ‘Please allow me to leave.’
‘You are free to go. However, it is my duty to ensure your wellbeing and safety. As a human you are malfunctioning, and thus lacking the insight to recognize as much. The human mind is flawed and subject to misperceptions at the best of times, at the worst such limits can---.’
‘Yes I understand perfectly my general lack of objectivity. I’ll just have live with being limited.’
This time the hatch opened. Torbin jumped and fell into the welcoming embrace of a cushioned surface.
The bay field only relented a fraction of a second before the ship reached it. Outside, he was caught in null space. Torbin asked the computer if it was safe to exit into normal space. ‘No,’ came the answer. Then a moment of doubt: could this be an Elusiver ship tied into the Kintra’s preferences, programmed not to act in his interests?
‘Where are we heading?’ he asked it.
‘That information is not available.’
‘Take me out into normal space,’ he demanded.
‘That is not advised.’
‘Just do it!’
The moulded seat further engulfed him; a whining noise from somewhere near. Torbin felt a sharp awareness of his past; he saw it all so clearly now – a fattening trail of troubles. All points end here, no thought of a future, no thought of a destination. Then … darkness.
When Torbin came to, he found the ship was back in the puceness of null space. In his dream he had been in a far better place, a more accepting reality than even anything simulated. Just to be unquestioningly in the moment, without the doubts, without the regrets. Without the fear.
The graphics displayed before him made no sense at first, they were just a nuisance irrelevance. But meaning soon filtered through, as if reacquainted with a language seldom used.
‘Computer. Confirm: are we heading for the Elusiver homeworld?’
‘Affirmative,’ it answered in it’s coldly precise way. ‘We are about to enter normal space. Please be prepared.’
‘We’re nearly there?’
‘Affirmative.’
&n
bsp; ‘And I have no choice but to be taken into a war zone?’
‘Cannot confirm martial status of planet.’
‘Well, if that’s the location of the ultimate counter weapon where else do you think the Kintra will head?’
‘It is a logical target. However, I am bound by protocol.’
Torbin didn’t bother responding. He simply let the craft take him to the planet.
When they reached visual range, Torbin felt a momentary sense of satisfaction from being right, seeing the mass of ships of various shapes and sizes blasting chunks out of each other. Two of the most advanced civilizations in the galaxy were fighting like some old science fiction movie depiction of interstellar enemies. In the end, when there was never any prospect of negotiating towards peace, it all came down to brute force. It appealed to merely watch from this provisionally safe distance – like they were two old heavyweights slugging it out for the final time, knowing that neither would escape unscathed. If this really was the battle royale the net result could only be a heavy loss for both sides; the only true winners: the B’tari. Surely this had been the way for all species throughout history; the ultimate survivors were not always the ones that successfully competed for dominance but those left unscathed on the sidelines, those who took over the vacated niche.