Llewellyn choked for breath. “Jesus, Captain, calm down…” I said.
“Stay out of it,” Tobias barked, stabbing a finger at me with his free hand, not taking his eyes off the professor. “From now on, you follow orders. Do you understand that, Damien?”
Professor Llewellyn spluttered an affirmative reply, and Tobias let him go. We stood awkwardly around the campfire, Jonas and Andy still carrying Rahvi’s stretcher. Tobias looked up at the Endeavour, at its three-storey bulk, the blue metal glistening in the light of the flames. “So you’ve had a productive day, have you?” he said. “This thing talks?”
You’re welcome to speak to me yourself, Captain, the Endeavour said.
I watched Tobias carefully. His rifle was over his shoulder but his right hand kept brushing past the Browning holstered at his thigh, as though this was any kind of potential threat he could shoot. Instinct, I guess.
“What are you?” Tobias said eventually. “Why are you here?”
It’s a long story, as I told Aaron and Matthew last night, the Endeavour said. I can assure you I am a friend. Before anything else, please bring the corporal inside to the medical bay.
Tobias’ poker face was motionless, but he clearly wasn’t happy. On the other hand, he didn’t have much choice. “Come on,” he said to the us, and walked inside the ship.
The Endeavour directed us down a few corridors, into a circular room with darker panels of blue stretching across the walls and ceiling. Like most of the rooms in the Endeavour, it was a tight fit. Our heads scraped the ceiling and Jonas, with his seven-foot frame, had to hunch over.
“What is this?” Tobias said. “There’s nothing in here.”
There is, the Endeavour said. Just nothing you can see.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
It is inside the walls – and since I know from Professor Llewellyn that you’re here to study me, I would advise you not to try ripping anything out. It will only render it useless. Leave Corporal Rahvi in here and it will focus and channel his body’s own healing mechanisms.
“Again – what does that mean?”
It is a mental treatment. A helping hand for his body’s immune system. It will concentrate energy on…
“Are you telling me,” Tobias said, cutting it off, “that we just carted a wounded man across the mountains for half a day for some hippie mystic energy bullshit?”
I am simplifying the process, the Endeavour said curtly. I could explain it at length, but you would not understand. It is not “mystic.” It utilises technology far beyond the human level of development. You would not expect to explain penicillin to a caveman, so do not expect me to explain this to you.
“Can’t be any worse than leaving him at the lodge,” Andy said.
Tobias said nothing.
You have a number of gashes on your hand, Captain, sustained in the helicopter crash last week, the Endeavour said. I invite you to visit this room over the coming days and see how quickly they heal.
“How do you know about the helicopter crash?”
I know everything Aaron and Matt know. Almost everything.
“Are you reading our minds?” Tobias demanded.
No. I was forced to search Aaron and Matthew’s mind to understand who they were and what they wanted, before speaking to them directly. But I am not currently ‘reading’ your mind. Nor will I.
“But you’re in our minds right now,” Andy said. “We can hear you.”
I am projecting my thoughts and you are receiving them, the Endeavour said. That is quite different.
“Look,” Tobias said, unshouldering his rifle and his backpack, and sitting down. It had been a long day – we were all exhausted. “Why don’t you start from the beginning, and tell me exactly what’s going on here?”
So the Endeavour started again, recounting the same story it had last night to me and Matt. The rise of the machines. The formation of the alliance. The seed strategy. The mysterious case of Earth. The Endeavour’s own dispatch mission, send to find out what was going on. Its horrible, painful battle in orbit with the machines, shot down, the crew vaporised when the hull was breached, and a lonely crash-landing in the Snowy Mountains.
It took a long time, and I’d heard it already. I went out to the campfire to join Llewellyn, who’d also heard it already, during his long day here. We cracked open and heated up some of the tins of beans. Our supplies are running low; we probably only have a few days of food left before we’ll have to go back to the lodge and restock, if Trish lets us. Not that she really has a choice. I don’t know. We have to go fetch Simon and Sergeant Blake anyway.
But it was that field of thought – the long-term planning – which the group had moved on to discussing when Llewellyn and I came back into the medical bay.
“So what happens now?” Tobias said. “What are you going to do now?”
I will send a mission report to the Telepath homeworld explaining why the seed program on Earth failed, and that this sector is under machine control after all, the Endeavour said. I can do that overnight. Then I will await their orders.
“What do you expect those to be?” Tobias said.
The Endeavour chose it words carefully. I told you before we have a policy of not interfering with less advanced life forms, because it has led to conflict in the past. Hence the seed program. But it is not a strict law. If a species is amenable to co-operation, co-operation can be possible.
“So… they’ll come reinforce us?” Andy said. “This alliance you guys have – they can come help us?”
I did not say that, the Endeavour said. No. That would not be a prudent use of resources. What I mean is that there will be no prohibitions on sharing information and technology with your species – though the advanced collapse of your civilisation may be a hindrance.
“You said that after a few years they’ll get bored with us anyway and just kill us,” Matt said. “Wipe us out for good. So what’s the point? How can we fight against that? What are we even supposed to do?”
I would need more information before suggesting any course of action, the Endeavour said. One thing I can say with some confidence is that if the machines had attacked Earth directly, humans could have put up a significant fight. You have a fairly advanced level of technology compared to most species which come into their sphere expansion.
“So the zombies, then,” Jonas said. “Knock the legs out from under us?”
The manipulation of the dead was part of their general strategy of study, the Endeavour said. An unusually vile one. But yes – they would not have been able to establish ground stations without first creating that level of collapse in human society, and in your military forces. And establishing ground stations is in itself an unusual act; normally they observe from orbit. I would suspect the ground stations are vital to maintaining the animation of the dead.
“Maintaining?” I said. “What are you talking about? It’s a virus.”
It is not a virus, as Professor Llewellyn…
“Ah!” Tobias interjected. “That’s classified.”
“Oh, come on!” Matt said.
Even as Tobias had said it, he seemed to realise how frivolous it was, as we sat here inside the belly of a talking spaceship. “Yeah,” he said wearily. “All right, fine, go ahead.”
Professor Llewellyn cleared his throat. “Uh… it’s not a virus, simply put. We have captive zombies that we study, up on a ship near Christmas Island. Put a blood sample under a microscope and you can tell straight away – it’s not a virus. It’s nanomachines.”
“What the hell are nanomachines?” Jonas said.
“Tiny machines,” Llewellyn said. “Microscopic. We’d started developing them ourselves – humans, I mean, not us in Australia. The US military first, but these days they’re ten a penny. They can be the size of a few molecules. They can self-replicate, in theory. And I think we can assume we’re talking about a much higher level of technology here, compared to what we’ve been tinkering with.�
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“But what do they do?” Jonas said.
“Well, in medicine, they could have been used for all kinds of stuff,” Llewellyn said. “Attacking cancer cells, regrowing bone marrow, multiplying red blood cells – all kinds of stuff. But in this case it looks like they’re replicating the functions of a virus.”
“No virus has ever done something like this,” I said. “That’s the thing. No fucking virus ever made dead bodies stand up and start walking again.”
“Well, yes,” Llewellyn said. “Exactly. Whereas nanomachines could theoretically maintain decaying flesh, theoretically keep the brain tissue intact enough to direct motor skills, and – well. The dead eat the living, we know that. Which doesn’t make sense, considering they shouldn’t require protein or carbohydrates to function, or any of the reasons living species actually eat. But if you look at that as raw carbon, which the nanomachines can convert and use to shore up decaying tissue and bone matter, well…”
“And these things are in the zombies?” Andy said. “Every one of them?”
“They’re in all of us,” Tobias said. “You don’t need to be bitten to turn. They’re already inside all of us.”
We knew that already, of course. We’d known that for a long time. But now that I knew they were artefacts of the machines, like miniature versions of what we’d seen above the chopper crash… it made me feel nauseous. Like I wanted to scrub my veins clean.
“Jesus,” Andy said. “So what’s to stop one of these things from flipping a switch and just turning us all into zombies, any day now?”
Perhaps that will be their eventual course of action, when their experiment is concluded, the Endeavour said.
We all sat in silence for a moment, listening to the wind wailing along the ship’s hull.
“What did you say about the ground stations?” Matt said. “About maintaining things?”
I am speculating, the Endeavour said. But given how unusual it is for the machines to make landfall in these situations, there may be a link between the ground stations and the continued animation of the dead.
“They’ve got pretty extensive coverage,” Llewellyn said. “You showed me that map, Captain, on Christmas Island. Wherever they are – the ones in Russia, the ones in North America – they’re more or less equidistant, if you draw a circle around them. It’s like they’re saturating all the landmass.”
“We’ll look into it,” Tobias said slowly. “I’ll talk to the government. But – I mean, what do you suggest? That we attack the ground stations?”
That would be one option.
“Why don’t we just nuke them?” Andy said. “The Americans nuked most of their cities, didn’t they? Tell them about this. Or the Russians, or the Chinese…”
“No, that was one guy,” Tobias said. “Some rogue submarine commander. He only bombed a few cities in Texas.” But he seemed to be thinking about something else.
“Captain,” I said after a moment. “What are you not telling us?”
Tobias sighed. “Fine. All right. If classified intel’s going out the fucking window, you may as well know. The Americans tried nuking the base on their soil back near the start. That was when the president was still alive, at NORAD. They tried a few times. The missiles went haywire every time – just lanced off and landed a few hundred kilometres away instead. Clearly the target had some kind of deflection system. So there’s a few big patches of radioactive wasteland up in the Dakotas now, but that ground station is still sitting there just fine.
“So after that they tried a different approach. They scraped together the fighter jets and the bombers they still had, and some tanks, and went in for a conventional attack. That didn’t work either. We don’t have any footage of it, any photos, but I read one of the survivor’s reports. Said it was like stirring up an ant’s nest. Hundreds of those black aircraft coming out, like the one that shot us down here. The American forces were more or less wiped out.”
Did they bring down any of the machine craft? the Endeavour asked.
“I don’t know. I’d have to check. Maybe. But they lost the battle, anyway.”
As I said – your technology is more advanced than the machines would generally come across while exterminating life, the Endeavour said. They are strong. They are advanced. But they are not invincible. It appears as though the problem in the Americans’ use of nuclear weapons was the delivery – the guidance system interfered with, the missile deflected. If a bomb could be detached and delivered conventionally – perhaps as part of another attacking force – a ground station could be destroyed.
“This was in February,” Tobias said. “Things were bad then, and they’re worse now. We don’t have a lot of assets left to scrape together. Not here, not in America, not anywhere.”
I understand. But you are not entirely helpless. You still have strongholds and outposts, even just here in Australia. Consider the rest of the planet. If your species can work together, and mount a concerted assault, you could destroy the ground stations. It would not be easy. But it would be possible.
“But then what?” Matt said. “Won’t the machines in orbit just finish the job, like you said? Ahead of schedule, even?”
There may no longer be any vessels in orbit. They may not be required, considering the ground stations. In any case: one definite outcome would be to do nothing. Within a few years, the machines will use a more direct assault and wipe humanity out entirely. That is a certain factor. Everything else must flow from that.
“If we take these ground stations out somehow – do we get assistance?” Tobias asked. “Does that buy us entry into your alliance? Will we get reinforcements, before the next machine fleet comes along to wipe us out properly?”
Unlikely. You are behind the machine’s perimeter. Of course, this is the edge of their empire, and battle lines have been known to shift. But I would not pin any false hopes on help from the alliance.
“Thanks a lot,” Andy said.
It is not my decision.
“There must be something you can do!” Jonas said.
I was a scouting and surveillance craft, the Endeavour said. I was very low in the hierarchy, even before I was crippled and stranded. The Telepaths themselves, as a species, are low in the hierarchy of the alliance. Believe me when I say that there is nothing I can do.
“Fucking hell,” Andy said.
“Look, settle down,” Tobias said. “We’re just dreaming shit up here. You’re talking about a co-ordinated assault on a dozen different sites across the globe. Using decimated military forces, without clear leadership, balkanised, divided… I mean, Christ, we’ve got rogue commanders here in Australia. Half the Navy mutinied and took off for the South Pacific. Never mind what’s going on in the rest of the world. Let’s take things one step at a time, all right?”
“So what’s the next step, then?” I said.
“We get some sleep,” Tobias said. “I’ll find a decent hill and report to Christmas Island tomorrow. Endeavour, you can… I guess you can do your thing and send your report. Me and Jonas can take first watch.”
That won’t be necessary, the Endeavour said. My sensors can detect anything moving up to two kilometres away. If anything approaches I can wake you and warn you.
Tobias hesitated. “Thanks. But we’ll post a guard anyway.”
I’d thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep – my head is too busy, buzzing away with questions – but I’m exhausted, after spending most of the day trekking to the lodge and back. I found one of the smaller rooms down the Endeavour’s main corridor, and rolled my sleeping bag out in it for a bit of privacy. It’s warmer inside the Endeavour than out, but still pretty cold.
It’s funny. Lying here, zipped up in the dark with only my little flashlight, scribbling away. I can feel the others more clearly than I used to. I don’t know what I mean by that – I can feel that they’re there, I guess. I can tell the Endeavour is there, the sense of a thinking mind all around us – and I can most definitely tell that Matt
’s there, snoring away in a room down the corridor from me.
But I can just… sense them. I can tell Andy is already asleep. I can tell Tobias and Jonas are awake, out near the warmth of the campfire, standing watch. Rahvi’s mind is hard to grasp, invisible and slippery – he’s semi-comatose, not even dreaming. And Professor Llewellyn is still awake, I can tell, because I think he’s talking to the Endeavour, just as he has been all day, a scientist given an open-ended conversation with an entity which can tell him all about the next three centuries of technological development up the curve from us.
And I could read Tobias, today. When I was looking at him. I could tell when he was nervous or worried. I could tell when he was hiding something. I’ve never been very good at reading people, but today I knew.
Maybe it’s being close to the Endeavour that does it. I’ll have to ask.
July 2
I woke today for the second time inside the eerie blue light of the Endeavour, and for a second time I felt discombobulated, unsure of where I was – before it all came flooding back to me.
Inside the ship it was still completely dark. I crawled out of my sleeping bag, pulled on my snow gear and fumbled blindly out into the corridor.
The others were all still asleep. I had to take a leak, so I headed out towards the gash in the hull. Andy was asleep in the corridor, rifle in hands – I guess he’d been on last shift, but had taken the Endeavour’s word that it wasn’t necessary to post a sentry.
Outside it was bitingly cold, the wind whipping flakes of fresh snow along the ground, the fire burnt down to embers. I put a few more logs on and then headed up the slope to the east, intending to take a leak and figuring I may as well look at the sunrise.
The pale snow gums ran all the way up to the top of the slope, and when I reached the peak I looked back down through the leaves at the Endeavour in the valley. From up here it didn’t look like much at all. You could easily mistake it for a landform, covered in snow. I suppose it must have looked very different when it first came down, in the bare grass of summer – and will look like that again, once winter passes and the snow melts.
End Times Box Set [Books 1-6] Page 77