Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three)

by Worth, Dan

  The Arkari craft shut off their beams, leaving a steaming crater in the ice and snow that they had gouged several hundred metres deep. Already, the surface was starting to refreeze, frost forming on the slick, black surface of the great circular door in the mountainside.

  ‘Any idea how we get inside?’ said Rekkid. ‘What do we do, just walk up to it and knock?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Aaokon.

  They had begged Mentith to let them land here. They had come all this way, they had argued, what harm would a few extra hours do? Surely they should at least catch a glimpse of the descendants of the enigmatic race that had built this place, built the gate network and the other vast machines and structures that littered the galaxy. Eventually Mentith had relented, on condition that they did not make contact and only observed from afar. Katherine had almost literally jumped for joy.

  As she looked upon them, she could scarcely believe how familiar the Progenitors looked. They had seen a few images of them, and the AI constructs such as Eonara and Aaokon had modelled their avatars after their original creators, but to see the Progenitors in the flesh was something else.

  ‘They really do look like us, don’t they?’ said Rekkid, settling down beside her on the ground and squinting through a tiny pair of viewers at the scene below.

  ‘Yes. This could be a scene from the past of either of our races.’

  ‘Or the future,’ Rekkid replied. ‘If such civilisational reversal can happen to the Progenitors, it can happen to us too.’

  ‘But they’re so.... so... I was going to say ‘human’ but that sounds a little inappropriate.’

  ‘They’re very like us, both of us. I keep wondering about what Aaokon said, about the Progenitors seeding the galaxy with nano-machines in order to manipulate the evolution of whole planets to create something like themselves. Do you think that they look like us, because they are us, in a manner of speaking? Maybe the Akkal weren’t the only ones...’

  Katherine was watching one of the men through her viewers as he walked toward the fields on the edge of the village. He stopped and turned for a moment, and looked almost straight at her. She froze instinctively, before chiding herself: it wasn’t possible that he could have seen her from such a distance. Aside from a slight elongation of the skull, slightly flattened features and a heavier brow, his bearded face would have been able to pass without comment on any human world.

  ‘I think...’ she began. ‘I think that may be entirely possible.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Rekkid. ‘Or maybe it’s just a coincidence of parallel evolution. In any case, we need to go back to the shuttle. Steelscale’s on his way. I said we’d join them as soon as possible.’

  ‘It seems such a shame to leave,’ said Katherine. ‘The things we could learn. Even if we excavated these ruins...’ she added, patting the ground beneath her, ground composed of the compacted floors of a massive habitation block.

  ‘I think that we should leave these people alone,’ warned Rekkid. ‘One day, they may learn the truth about their past, about the horror that they unleashed upon the galaxy. For now though, let them exist in blessed ignorance. I doubt if they would be able to comprehend the truth, and even if they could, it might destroy them just as the truth destroyed the Akkal. It’s strange to think that their ancestors built all of this. One day, perhaps the rest of the Progenitors will return from outside the galaxy to reclaim their home-world, but until then, we should let these people be.’

  Despite the insulating suit, Katherine could feel the biting cold starting to seep through as she plodded forward through the driving snow towards the glassy bowl that had been gouged from the ice. She cast her mind back to a few hours previously, when she had lain in the sunshine in the planet’s temperate zone and gazed in wonder at its inhabitants. Those self same people had built the place that she now struggled towards – a circular plug of black material about five metres high that stood out against the exposed rock. Light seemed to fall into it. Its surface details were invisible save for where frost and snow clung to it, highlighting a pattern of concentric circles.

  Rekkid walked at her side, along with the drone from the ship that was acting as the eyes and ears for the two AIs. It skittered along on its many legs. Steelscale had joined them too, deciding to brave the cold once more. He was as eager as they to see what lay inside the ominous black structure.

  They eventually reached the edge of the bowl that had been boiled away out of the ice by the Arkari craft, which even now held station overhead, watching their progress. The surface of the ice had already re-frozen, turning the surface of the bowl into a glassy sheen that was treacherous to walk on. Steelscale seemed to fare the best, spreading his feet wide to get a more stable footing on the ice. Both Katherine and Rekkid slipped and fell as they descended, the padding of their suits saving them from injury but not embarrassment, although even the ship’s drone seemed to be having a little trouble negotiating the descent.

  Eventually, they stood before the great black door, and gazed up at the night dark edifice. Like the Shaper ships, its surface hurt the eyes to look at it. It seemed to be both there and not there at once, confusing the brain if one looked directly at it. In the dull light of the snowstorm it seemed to imperceptibly shift.

  ‘Can you feel it, Rekkid?’ said Katherine. ‘The weight of history pressing down on this place? This is it. This is where it all began. All of it. The end of the Progenitors, the creation of the Shapers, the war, everything. Perhaps even the creation of other races throughout the galaxy.’

  ‘Those who have climbed the highest have the furthest to fall,’ Rekkid replied, transfixed by the black door. ‘And the Progenitors fell so very far indeed.’

  ‘Even gods make mistakes,’ rumbled Steelscale. ‘For example: our god did not make the K’Soth suited to cold climates. Can we please get inside before my scales freeze off?’

  ‘Aaokon: you said you knew how to open this thing,’ said Rekkid. ‘We would appreciate it if you would make good on that promise.’

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Aaokon. ‘The interfaces may be a little recalcitrant in responding after all this time... they are not... ah, there we go.’

  There was a dull thud from within the black door and then the hiss of a vacuum being breached as the air from outside rushed into the hairline crack that had appeared in the mirrored surface, a crack which grew ever wider as the two halves began to part and fold back into the mountainside until a looming black hole yawned before them. Another set of doors, similar to the ones that had just opened, was dimly visible at the far end of the cylindrical chamber. The wind howled, whipping ghostly flakes of snow across the dark hollow in the mountain.

  ‘Looks inviting,’ said Rekkid. ‘Shall we?’

  The drone was the first to move, scuttling quickly across the ice on its multiple insectile legs, the sensor clusters on its head sweeping ahead for danger.

  ‘War Marshal, this is Doctor O’Reilly,’ said Katherine into her comm. as they followed the drone in. ‘Are you seeing this?’

  ‘We’re getting a clear feed from the drone, yes,’ came the reply.

  ‘We’re heading inside. I’d appreciate it if you’d stand by to extract us at a moment’s notice if need be.’

  ‘Do you think that’s likely to be necessary?’ said Mentith.

  ‘I don’t know. Something about this place...’

  ‘We’ll monitor the situation. I’ll instruct the teams on the ground to move in immediately if you require assistance or if we lose contact with the drone.’

  ‘Roger that, O’Reilly out,’ said Katherine and stepped over the lip of the entrance.

  Inside, the floor material was smooth and glassy and felt indistinct under her feet. Peering at it in the dim light she could just make out patterns shifting beneath its surface. It was indeed reminiscent of the material that the Shaper ship on Rhyolite had been fashioned from, appearing to be at once there and not. It confused her eyes if she looked directly at it and was
immensely difficult to walk on without slipping and falling.

  The group reached the far end of the chamber and stopped in front of the second great set of doors. They were identical to the first, massive and etched with concentric rings.

  ‘So, how do we get inside?’ said Steelscale impatiently, still visibly shivering from the cold. ‘Aaokon, are you also able to open this door?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said the voice of the AI. ‘I am accessing the lock systems now. One moment.’

  There was a grinding sound behind them. They turned as one and saw the circle of grey light and swirling snow beginning to rapidly close.

  ‘Shit! We’re being shut in!’ cried Katherine and tried to turn and head back the way that they had come, only to slip and fall on the slick floor. It was a pointless effort in any case. As Rekkid hauled her to her feet she looked up and saw that the circle of light had become a thin, vertical sliver, and then it disappeared entirely with a hollow boom. They were shut in, in total darkness.

  Light flared in the darkness as the drone illuminated the space for them with lights on its head.

  ‘Aaokon, what the hell is going on?’ Rekkid demanded angrily of the drone. There was no answer. ‘Aaokon? Eonara? Shining Glory, this is Professor Rekkid Cor. Please respond!’

  ‘Shining Glory, this is Dr Katherine O’Reilly, are you reading us?’ said Katherine into her comm. She was met with a similarly stony silence.

  The drone deployed weapons and appeared to be scanning the vast hollow space. It said something incomprehensible in Arkari.

  ‘The drone’s gone back into autonomous mode,’ said Rekkid. ‘Its contact with the ship has been severed. Well that’s wonderful’.

  ‘Mentith will send others after us,’ said Steelscale. ‘They’ll get us out of here.’

  ‘Assuming that they can get through that outer door of course,’ Rekkid replied, glumly.

  They stared despondently into the darkness, the drone’s lights providing meagre illumination in the large, drum shaped chamber. There was a sudden thud from the inner door behind them, and then a crack of light appeared with a hiss of equalising atmospheres, the crack widening slowly until they could see beyond into the brightly lit, pristine interior. Curving walls of gleaming white composite and glass and a seamless white floor comprised a broad corridor littered with trolleys stacked with equipment that looked as if it had been left there only yesterday. The corridor extended far back into the mountain, leading off into chambers both to the left and right and in the middle floated two figures, a Progenitor male and female. It was Aaokon and Eonara, their avatars rendered in holographic form.

  ‘I am sorry for that,’ said Aaokon. ‘I attempted to open the inner door without closing the outer, but was overridden by the locking system.’

  ‘It was a little unsettling,’ said Katherine.

  ‘Yes of course, however it was not possible to open the inner door without first pumping the atmosphere back in the facility. In any case, Eonara and I have gained access to the Life Forge’s main network from the Shining Glory. We are currently undertaking the methodical process of unlocking and re-activating the systems. All knowledge of the interior of this place was of course wiped from our memories and we have no knowledge of what hidden traps and security measures may be buried within these ancient devices. We must be cautious.’

  ‘This place looks pristine,’ said Steelscale. ‘After four billion years... how is that possible?’

  ‘It has been perfectly sealed ever since it was abandoned,’ said Eonara. ‘With the atmosphere pumped out and the base buried and hidden beneath a mountain of rock and ice, it has lain undisturbed ever since, frozen in time for all those years.’

  ‘Incredible,’ said Katherine. ‘Just look at this place...’

  ‘If you choose to explore the facility, you should exercise extreme caution,’ said Eonara. ‘We cannot vouch for what may have lain dormant here, or what you may discover, though we will not move to stop you. We have re-established our link with the ship’s drone and will attempt to defend you, but understand that the Progenitors may have left things to guard this base that we cannot stop. Tread carefully.’

  The three of them headed deeper into the complex, the ship’s drone leading the way and scanning for anything recognisable as a weapons system or booby trap. So far, it had found nothing. As they walked, the facility started to come alive around them as Eonara and Aaokon restored the various systems. The air was still freezing, however, and their breath formed wispy clouds in front of their faces as moved onwards.

  The Life Forge was vast. From the main corridor that they had entered at first, branching corridors led off on both sides in a grid system of seemingly endless laboratories filled with gleaming and enigmatic equipment - containment tanks which presumably once held samples of some kind, surrounded by what looked like complex monitoring equipment, banks of machines filled with tiny phials and capsules, holographic displays that now showed error messages in the Progenitor script, and everywhere, pallets, shelves and trolleys of one kind or another stacked high with equipment. It was as if everything connected to the Shapers and the planet seeding program had been hastily stashed in this secret bolt-hole, the miraculously preserved condition of everything making it look as if the owners had only just left. Some of the containment tanks held desiccated biological remains, of what it was impossible to say, though some suggested the forms of primitive animals, perhaps test subjects long abandoned to their fate. Eventually they came across tanks that held more familiar looking forms: mechanical things formed of gleaming metals and crystal shards, with segmented bodies and snaking tendrils.

  ‘Shaper agents,’ said Katherine.

  There was no mistaking them. The remains of the Shaper agents were more primitive looking than the ones that they had encountered before, but there was no mistaking their horrid larval forms. They were inert. Dead. One was still crusted with the terracotta colouring of long dried blood. Perhaps it had been removed from its host to study. Too late, the Progenitors had realised to their horror what their creations were doing, how they had infiltrated their society and brought about its collapse, and had made a desperate attempt to study their new enemy. It had been to little avail. Too little, too late.

  At the far end of the same laboratory they found a larger containment tank set away from the others. It was heavily armoured, placed behind several thick layers of transparent composite and surrounded by pieces of heavy equipment that could have been field generators of some kind and others that looked distinctly like automated weapon turrets. In the bottom of the tank was a pile of motes like fallen flakes of silver. Rekkid peered through the thick transparent panels and tried to make out what they were. It was difficult for him to see the drift of glittering things through the armoured layers, but he got a distinct impression of legs and segmented bodies of different sizes.

  ‘It’s one of them,’ said the drone, speaking in Eonara’s voice. ‘One of the Shapers.’

  Rekkid took a sudden, horrified step away from the tank.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s quite dead. If such things can ever have been considered to have been alive,’ Eonara continued. ‘Ordinarily it would appear as a mobile swarm of millions of individual entities. The records show that it was captured with some difficulty during the later stages of the war and imprisoned here for study. It was killed by high powered electrical fields when it tried to subvert the security systems guarding it.’

  ‘That’s one of the Shapers?’ said Katherine.

  ‘Yes. Whilst the Shaper hive-mind comprises many different types of entity, the one you are looking at could be said to typify the actual Shaper race. It is these individuals who command the lesser creatures, such as the ships, agents and other parasitic organisms. Were this thing still active and free in this chamber, it would be able to tear you apart or take control of your mind and body with little difficulty. They are as deadly now as they were then, probably more so, given that they have evolved since. The Shap
er race was born in this facility, but when allowed to roam free they succeeded in rapidly reprogramming and redesigning themselves until they reached what they appeared to deem a state of perfection, diversifying into various forms. Since then, they have merely refined this design, though they have been dormant for much of the intervening period, waiting for suitable races to populate the galaxy that they could enslave.’

  ‘And what did they originally look like?’ said Katherine. ‘How different is this thing in the tank from your original creations?’

  ‘Follow the drone,’ said Eonara. ‘And I will show you.’

  The drone scuttled ahead, leading them onwards through the network of bright corridors that were silent save for the rhythmic ticking of the drone’s many limbs against hard white floor and the footsteps of the human, Arkari and K’Soth that followed in its wake.

  ‘We have accessed several of the key data stores within the facility,’ said Eonara. ‘Consequently, I have recovered much of the information that was wiped from my mind. Aaokon and I have not yet penetrated the vaults that hold the innermost secrets of the Shapers’ creation, but we shall reach them in time.’

  ‘And what precisely do you intend to do?’ said Rekkid. ‘You mentioned before about finding the knowledge to destroy the Shapers. What is your plan?’

  ‘Aaokon and I intend to craft a virus to infest the Shaper consciousness and destroy it from within,’ said Eonara. ‘Our intention is to subvert the base level core programming of the Shapers and force them to turn on one another. Of course, we haven’t yet established how exactly we will achieve this, nor how we can fool the Shapers into allowing the viral program into the hive-mind and allow it to spread across the galaxy. However, once we are able to retrieve the original design specifications of the Shapers and the information gathered on their later forms, we should be able to properly formulate our plan.’