by Simon Kewin
The Armageddon Machine
by Simon Kewin
Copyright © 2012 Simon Kewin
Cover image © Shutterstock/Algol.
The Armageddon Machine originally appeared in Deep Magic. Copyright © Simon Kewin, 2005.
The Armageddon Machine
Mackenzie watched the universe end. It was beautiful, like a flower closing up for the night. Stars and planets swirled inwards, spiralling around and down, faster and faster, collapsing into an infinitesimal particle. As silent as the sunset. The more space/time that was pulled in, the more massive the particle became and the more gravity it exerted on what remained of the universe.
The point of no-return had already been passed. It was inevitable now that all of creation would reduce down to a single point. He wondered how it was he was able to watch without being affected. That couldn’t be right. But it was surely only a matter of time. And what did that mean since time as well was being destroyed?
The scale shifted outwards. Now whole galaxies, super-clusters of galaxies, were being sucked in. The rate of collapse increasing exponentially, the end of everything suddenly at hand. And then what? Would there be another Big Bang, the start of a pristine, virgin universe? Still he was outside, remote from it all.
There was nothing left but the invisible point and the void and him. And it wasn’t the comfortable, familiar blackness of space he knew so well, but a terrible absence of space, a nullity.
Something still nagged at him that this wasn’t right; he couldn’t be watching this. It occurred to him he must be dreaming. It was a gloriously reassuring realisation but still he couldn’t break out of it. It seemed to be a story he was stuck inside. He promptly lost the realisation.
Then came the noise, the start of the Bang, an alarmingly loud noise sounding strangely like the tolling of a bell. But how could that be possible? Of course, he was dreaming, becoming more and more confused as to what was real and what was not.
A familiar figure was standing over him. She was a musician from – what – Earth’s nineteenth century? He had forgotten most of his history. She had bright, scarlet hair, teased up into a ridge of spikes. Her nose and eyebrows and ears were pierced with a variety of metal studs and pins. Her clothes were a deliberately ragged collage of ripped cloth, leather, lace and studded metal. She had a worried look on her face. The bell was a gentle but insistent chiming from the ship, waking him up. Or was he still dreaming? No. He had known the ship use this avatar before when speaking to him directly. He was on board the Higher Than The Sun. His ship. OK. He sat up blearily.
‘You’re worrying about the Armageddon Machine more and more. Your nightmares used to be all memories of your experiences in the Draconian war. Now worries about the device have taken over. Maybe it’s time you took a break.’
He smiled, rubbing his eyes with two of his four hands.
‘Kind of hard to get away from though isn’t it? A device capable of bringing to an end the entire universe. Hard to escape something like that.’
‘I guess.’
‘You woke me because I was having a nightmare?’
‘No. It has changed course again. You wanted to know.’
‘Show me.’
A wall of the cabin became a window, showing space outside. Everything looked the same. The unlovely machine was there in the centre, part grey asteroid and part black metal starship, like a creature half-emerged from an egg. All round it, at a respectful distance, a halo of twinkling lights. The ships of the flotilla, their courses shadowing that of the machine.
‘Can you spot any patterns yet, any reason for these course changes?’
‘None. I have searched through the cultural and scientific records of all Million Star worlds, and everything we know about all other societies, and the movements of the ship match nothing. The course, the timings all appear chaotic. I still think our notion of a random-walk is the best; that the ship is searching for something and following some arbitrary-seek programming to do it.’
‘Or it’s defective, it’s gone wrong somehow.’
‘Indeed. Although judging by the normal effectiveness of Draconian military technology I’d say this was unlikely. I don’t need to tell you that.’
He grunted. Damn right. He watched the machine for a while, still a little stuck in his dream, expecting the thing to detonate at any moment. A pearly, yellow light pervaded the room, mimicking a pre-dawn glow. He had the whole fleet following a standard diurnal cycle. It seemed futile to be at battle-readiness.
‘Remind me how the Draconians pronounce the name of the ship.’
‘lsiur.’
It sounded such a gentle word.
‘And do we know yet what that might mean?’
‘An exact translation is impossible. Maybe Ragnarok? The Destroyer? The Final Machine?’
‘That such a device could have been conceived, let alone built.’
She sat down on the bed next to him.
‘From their point of view it made perfect sense. The Draconians thought it inherently desirable to kill other beings. That was why there were other beings. And why there were Draconians. It is quite conceivable they would construct such a machine faced with their own demise. At least this way they could never lose the war against every other living thing. Only draw it.’
‘Insane then.’
‘They thought the universe was theirs to use as they wished. They were unique in that they created a spacefaring technology solely in order to find more beings to hunt and kill. Every other species has been driven by inquisitiveness, population-pressure or the need to secure natural resources. Or as the result of some benign intervention, typically by the Xin of course. The Draconians did it because they had wiped out everything else on their homeworld.’
‘And the Ancients did nothing to stop them.’
‘Apparently. We can’t really be sure. The Xin move in mysterious ways.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
He knew a lot of people were voicing doubts about the Xin. They had lost the collective will to live. Their time had come to an end; they actually wanted to see the universe die. They were corrupt, divided, already all dead. He couldn’t believe any of it but he did wish they would get on and do something now.
He yawned. He didn’t feel particularly rested.
‘Well, nothing more to be seen I guess. Remind me tomorrow to have another word with our prisoner. The last surviving Draconian must be able to tell us something even if it does think we’re all worthless bacteria infesting its universe.’
‘OK. Have you forgotten that a delegation will also be here tomorrow to discuss the situation?’
‘Wish I could. But I think I’ll talk to our captive demon first. Wake me in time.
‘OK.’