OF CRIMSON INDIGO: TALES OF THE MASTER-BUILDERS

by Grant Fausey

  Above, the rig towered over him climbing into the heavens in a connecting series of buildings that stretched for the threshold of space itself. The thing was a masterful blending of technologies run amuck and towers that seemed to stretch into infinity, reaching hundreds of kilometers high and dozens wide. He could hear the steady pounding of the machinery, wheels pushing the city over the terrain, even its never-ending vibration. The gantry bounced with a continuous movement: The sound of machinery striping the planet into a collapsible shell with only an endless silence.

  "Hasn't changed much has it, Travis," Indigo said to him through the embodiment of Maccon.

  "Oh..." he answered, "... so you're back, are you?"

  "Only for the moment. There's one thing I forgot to mention...."

  "And what might that be?" mumbled Travis.

  "Shroom," Indigo laughed, chirping up a storm. Travis stepped along the gantry and stopped at the edge of a connecting platform. A two-foot tall living machine monkey stood before him.

  "What the hell is that?" asked Travis. The monkey chirped angrily, with both his hands on his hips. "Defiant aren't we," laughed Travis. "Well––are you going to stand there all day, blocking the way or are you going to take me to Kristic, Shroom."

  Shroom danced an angry dance then leaped up and down, running away with the speed of a projectile headed through the back streets to a small ship behind a weary tavern. "Shroom!" yelled Travis, stopping before the rag-tag remains of a Beamrider starship. "Nice bucket!" he continued, shaking his head. "I see Kristic hasn't changed a bit since the last…"

  Travis stopped midsentence searching the surface of the old relic while looking for some sign of life. But it seemed abandoned. The starship was ancient, left over from the regeneration wars: definitely the ship of a trader. Most where sleek and fast, packed with enough engines and firepower to horde off most of the Emperor's crack fighters. But this one! Travis laughed again. This one was more or less a pile of junk. Yet, if here was where he was to find his old friend then here is where he would find him. Travis yelled at the top of his lungs following Shroom up the ramp to the walkway along the side entrance to the tavern. "You haven't sent me on another wild goose chase have you, Maccon?" he asked.

  Indigo didn't answer, neither did Maccon.

  "What's the matter," Travis laughed. "Come on! This isn't the time to be playing games, you know!"

  "Oh what the hell," Indigo said to him. Maccon repeated the words the bounty hunter spoke. "You'll make the discovery sooner or later, anyway." Travis stopped just short of the door, ready to step into the tavern, but steamed over his spoken words. He had had enough questions answered with questions. A quick scan around the interior revealed the place was another un-crowded street bar, and less attractive. Shroom's leaped across the tables, blazing a trail through the patrons creating quite a commotion with the drinks, splashing one then two then three. The little critter was just about to land in the arms of an old patron, when the bartender let go with a wrist-action device about the size of an apple. The projectile hit the face hugger in the far corner and figured he should rush along behind him.

  "Kristic Kaa," announced Travis snickering.

  "I've been waiting for you, boy" snapped an old sailor. "I could feel your presence in the scheme of things; figured you would find your way here soon enough, so I reckon you did!"

  The old man whispered something completely incomprehensible, pulling out a chair. He turned the wooden stool around, so he could sit on it back to his chest. "Shroom," slurred Kristic, "fetch me another bottle and bring one for young Travis, he's going to need it."

  "I need something," answered the young technocrat. There was a bit of agitation in Travis' voice. "What the hell is going on? You have to help me. Teach me the ancient ways ... I need to travel the mysteries again, old friend."

  "Not again––" scrutinized the old man. "Sounds like you’re in there, Maccon! Is that the voice I hear?"

  "I am here, Kristic," said Maccon in Travis’ voice. “Awaken and remember, old friend."

  "I'm too old to remember!” Laughed the ghostly figures. “Especially, if it's anything important! Too old to care, Travicon or whoever the hell you are."

  "Nonsense," repeated the traveller, before Indigo could answer.

  "Right!" barked Kristic. "So when do I get to be the young apprentice?"

  "Soon, if we fail."

  "Not again," muttered Kristic, barking into his class to drown out his sorrow. "That makes this the hundredth time or more. Hell, you've been trying to kill this thing across time forever. It's impossible, no matter how you look at it."

  "All right," admitted Travis. He knew what he was up against, death itself. "I've no choice, but to obey. We might as well get out of here and get on with it.”

  “Then let's get going." Kristic wobbled, it was more a task than a pleasure. He was drunk; his young apprentice was obnoxious. But he had to go. He had to defend the frontier. Kristic pushed out the chair and looked to the left then the right. "Stand back," he yelped. "This is always the best part."

  Travis cringed. Kristic fell immediately to the ground, plowing threw the center of the table to the floor. His head wobbled again as he looked up and said: "I guess you're going to have to carry me."

  "I guess so," laughed Travis. "Let's get to it." And with that and a groan, Travis picked him up and tossed him over his shoulder. Shroom chirped up a storm, leading the way out of the tavern. To Travis shook his head, it seemed his nightmares where far from over.

  Travis cleared his mind, foreseeing a murder-taking place across the universe, on the asteroid remains of his home world. The nightmare whirled in on him, growing stronger with each and every step he took. A salvage operation shuttle lifted off from an orbital platform, lurching away from the structure, only to spiral out into space. Its flight path crossed the northern most courses over an ancient planet's largest remaining landmass. On the surface of the asteroid mass, a team of workers in space suits moved cautiously through the rubble looking for artifacts and anything of value. It was literally a "free-for-all." However, today was anything but their lucky day. The debris they sifted through wasn't the remains of an ancient temple, the treasure room of a noble governor, but rather the white rooms of the Industries genetics laboratory; a house filled with pain, suffering and eventual death.

  The lead worker, a rather short man with a bright red space suit, moved through the rubble, lifting and tossing aside the panels and support structures of the main laboratory. He pushed aside the heavy panels as if they were made of lightweight plastics. The light from his powersuit gliding across the wreckage in patches of iridescent glow promising computer scans of biogenetic material. "Looks like it's over here!" announced the leader, picking up a small piece of the wreckage before tossing it out of his way. They had found what they were looking for all right, but something else had found them. The worker lifted several small canisters out of the rubble, and deposited them into a delicately constructed preservation container holding it high in the air. "Got it," he squawked over the intercom with a grin that covered his entire face from ear to ear. But before he could scroll another piece of metal, he was pushed aside and discarded, stepped on like a piece of junk under a low-grade mineral. His comlink flicked with a touch of his wrist activator.

  "I'm on my way out!" he said, joyfully. "Keep the coffee hot, until I get there." A laugh accompanied the acknowledgement in his headset. He chuckled, running his hand along the length of the tube he had removed, measuring out its size to be about 15 centimeters long and six in diameter: Nothing major to look at, but the interior contained perfectly preserved genetic materials––certainly a prize worth keeping.

  He tucked the canister under his arm and turned to the other salvage engineers, following the same tracks he had made on the way in. It was a standard procedure to follow ones own footsteps ... safe on the way in was usually safe on the way out. Nevertheless, this wasn't one of those times. The worker's face turned white–– f
lushed of all color as it drained of all its pigment. The salvage engineer wanted to scream, but the air rushed from his spacesuit so fast he couldn't. He'd been attacked in no uncertain terms. He just didn't know by what. He was dying, killed by a silent and unseen enemy.

  The genetic canister covered with the workers blood as it fell to the surface, smashing into the rubble in front of a shadowy mass. The muck melded with the blackness then passed over him and as it lifted from the ground, reaching out to touch the underside of another passing shuttle. The ship's bottom ripped away, being pulled back from the side like a can opened with a saw. The sheet metal rolled into scrap. Tossed aside to the asteroid's surface by the darkness. The light disappeared from the interior, being absorbed into the darkness within the interior. The blackness encased the shuttle, hitching a ride.

  Travis snapped out of the vision, his skin crawling, while his mind smeared memories formed an afterthought. This was more than a vision; this had facts that eluded him: He was within Kristic's inner sanctum, safe in the confines of his starship on the planet Telta Minor. He knew that much for sure, but something was missing. Some piece of the puzzle he didn't yet have.

  Travis caught his breath.

  Kristic touched his shoulder and whispered to him. "Welcome to the war," he said bluntly. Travis went wide-eyed, and awake. There was no way to realize just how much he didn't know. It was a game that seemed to have lot of players. If he lowered his head, it was probably going to get cut off. His understanding had failed and now matters were worse. The future of humanity was dependent on his next breath.

  –– 26 ––

  THE GRAND EXPERIMENT

  There was a smile on his face and a look of excitement in his eye, but his appearance was the same. This new Senator Creed was more human than his counterpart, more the original. He put a hand on the bulk of a window railing, overlooking the vast barrier of energy from the tiny confines of the Nexusphere experimentation station. The morning hours were passing quickly and the Senator was in a hurry. His view of the stars ended abruptly, cut off by the foreboding superstructure of the station and his docked barrier runner starship. The observation lounge rotation brought the starship into full view in front of the Senator. He was counting the minutes, waiting and watching as the station slowly aligned with the magnificent barrier of energy known as the Nexus. Today was the day, a real adventure in his life: For today would see the beginning of a dream’s fulfillment, the culmination of both a wish and the efforts of countless technicians in the service of the Empire.

  A most trusted colleague approached, Senator John Creed, joining him in the observation lounge. The face was familiar, but the accent was different. The Senator met this traveller before, on the home world. In fact, he had met a lot of Matthew Jason Brant's in the service of the Empire, but this one wore the uniform of an imperial starship captain very proudly. Decorated with the highest honors, another clone identical to the first, except the dress of his uniform stood beside him like a bookend. John Creed snickered. There wasn't a moment that passed that didn't seem out of place. He was thinking about the obvious implications, wondering how many of his own image there actually were. He had seen seven Matthew Jason Brant's since his trip from the galactic capital, three on the barrier runner and four on Gateway station before departure. There was always the possibility these replicants were the same ones, but the likelihood of a single clone having such diversity was incomprehensible, especially to the Industries. The companies preferred multiples in excess of a thousand. Only the older, experimental models came in less than a dozen varieties. There was no way of telling them apart.

  The genetics laboratory technicians duplicated so many models of humans, that attempting minor alterations in character and expressions was a common practice. Most common folks, such as traders and exporters, really weren't sure whether they were selling the original or a copy. The Industrialists never said, and no one dared ask. Almost every being created on Trithen had at least one copy of himself––a counterpart in one form or another: His or her other half. They called them soul mates and it was standard procedure. Brant and the Senator were no exception.

  Brant's skills made him valuable to the space lines and the interplanetary guilds, so drafts were created several hundreds of times for that particular career field. Each copy had the pleasure of working with another, or even the original, before taking a command of his vessel. Senator John Creed wasn't sure which ones he was dealing with: A copy, or the original. "It's definitely the last great experiment to be set into motion by the Industries, Brant," he said candidly.

  "I hope the high council hasn't made a mistake in going ahead with it.” The captain acknowledged the Senator with a grand smile on his face. “Creating an experimental solar system, complete with speculative worlds along the threshold to the Nexus seems a little risky, considering none of us will be alive to see what becomes of it."

  Senator Creed's smile went lax. He was weary of the false humility in Brant's conversation. Finally, after careful consideration, he took the opportunity to adjust the Captain's thinking. "Well––" he said with a slight arch of his eyebrows. "For many of us, it's the combination of years of ruthless experimentation and vivid imagination, but I'm sure someone will be around to see what becomes of it in oh ... let's say thirty thousand centuries or more."

  "I see," Brant said; he laughed refreshed. "It's not a matter of exploitation, but rather imagination."

  "Exactly, Captain," answered the Senator, "In twenty million years who’s going to care what becomes of it?" The Senator smiled a very diplomatic smile and patted the clone on the shoulder, stepping aside. "Besides," he continued, belligerently, "... if it suited the Industries purposes, why would we be doing such a wonderful job of it?"

  The clone nodded and left Brant without saying a word. The Senator was sure his conversation would get back to him through the usual channels and in record time. The other clone stepped lively, following the crew into the transfer tube, which connected the station to the barrier runner. Brant motioned for the Senator to follow him through the threshold of the door, making sure the final adjustments to the hatchway were complete before securing the station for posterity. Brant smiled and spoke softly, still pondering the Senator's words. "I must agree with you, Senator, about your expectations." His voice was sincere. "I just hope no outside forces are set into motion against it. Especially, in these early stages."

  The Senator grinned. He was in complete agreement with the Captain. His comments seemed important on the surface. However, secretly, John Creed was counting on interference. It was all part of the plan. He agreed with Captain, though. Appearance was everything. If only to keep him at bay, realizing too much truth would be hazardous to his own health, as well as all those involved.

  The airlock door sealed tightly behind him and Creed crossed the tube to the space plane. The barrier runner was a sleek starship, smooth along its long surface with winglets that swept wide to form the engine intakes at the front and hollowed to the rear for maximum displacement of the collected energies of the exhaust. It lunged away from the station's docking facility, and drifted a safe distance from the platform, before its twin power plants kicked in and the ship hurtled across the blackness.

  The seconds ticked past, the station grew smaller, disappearing with the experiment into the star filled background. The complex had become mere points of light among the heavens. Captain Brant and the Senator walked the length of a short, narrow corridor joining a group of dignitaries and scientists in the runner's observation lounge. The group gathered around the viewing ports, anticipating the first signs of the project's beginning. The Senator put his hand on Brant's shoulder and whispered, "Set course for the world of Oceanna, Captain then please open a intercommunications channel to the First Representative. I'll report our progress, myself."

  Brant acknowledge him with a turn of his head. His lips moved in silence, speaking telepathically to an aide employed in the task. Then, with a nod of his head,
the clone turned to watch the events. In the background, the aid addressed the bridge via intercom, relaying the Senator's request. "Mr. Talbert," he said in a deep voice, "have the bridge navigator set course for the planet Oceanna then have a communication established for Senator Creed with the First Representative in the captain's in-port cabin."

  "Aye, Sir," answered a wiry man's voice from the intercommunications device. The aide turned around, backtracking his attentions to the magnificent view through the windows just as an explosion of energy engulfed the heavens. The sky lit up in a spectacular convulsion of power, rushing toward odd-shaped probes with concentrated energy drawn directly from the Nexusphere into a wide circle about the space station.

  A second explosion erupted into thin rings of light, which raced away from the detonation on after the other in expanding distortion waves until the universe itself was filled with the shape of a great disk. The observers cheered wildly, yelling out an expression of great happiness. The Senator smiled, congratulating the others, while most everyone else was patting him on the back in the room. The aide approached him from the side, and stopped. "Your communication is ready, Senator. The first representative will be on the line any moment."

  "Thank you."

  "My pleasure, Sir."

  –– 27––

  STATION OR567L

  In itself, the BARRIER STATION OR567L was a huge compilation of various sizes of structures, forming the outer shell to a giant city in space. Yet within, the metropolis was a community with a single purpose––it was a time machine.