by Ashanti Luke
“I thought the Agamemnon processor was just barely in the Zwei generation.”
“It was, but they made a special prototype for integration into the Shipmate system here. It’s a little bigger than they would ever release on Earth, but it’s about twenty times more stable.”
“So you worked with Villichez and Winberg before the expedition?”
“Well, I worked with Villichez directly for about five years, but Winberg only sent us diagrams and specifications for mimicking the human brain. I only talked to him maybe twice during the whole process.”
“So who else do we have stored in this thing?” Cyrus asked turning back toward the cubicle. He thanked the Feynman image and closed the program.
“Honestly, I don’t remember, but the datadeck has the entire Unified Council Library stored in it, and I know Villichez and his lab mapped over five hundred profiles, both living and deceased. I’m pretty sure just about anyone of major importance to the disciplines of anyone on this ship, past or contemporary should be accessible. If not, someone related should be able to cross-reference the information into the datastream. There are also entries for each of us, but our journals and papers are communicated by other scientists. Villichez thought it was a little too creepy to have our likenesses when we are present on the ship, and in the event one of us doesn’t make it to the next phase of the mission, he thought it even creepier.”
“I agree. It’s stellar, but it’s creepy enough communing with dead without the potential of talking to myself.” Cyrus took a moment to ponder the possibilities, “You guys really went balls-out for us braniacs, didn’t you?”
“Well, that’s what I do. I keep my balls out just for you.” Jang laughed and ran his hand from his forehead all the way down the back of his shoulder-length hair. “Besides, I know we stand a chance of finding out more about young Earth by studying Asha, but the environment there sounds more like the end of the world to me. So if I’m going to hurtle through space on a one-way ticket to probable damnation, I want to take as much information with me as I can.”
“One-way ticket to probable damnation? Well said.”
“Thank you,” Jang nodded again, brushing the side of his nose with his thumb.
“You’re welcome. Sounds a lot like what’s gonna happen to you tonight if you show up at that grungy cubicle of yours and log into Conquest.”
“Sounds like someone’s getting a little big for his britches.”
Cyrus looked down, melodramatically surveying the waistband of his jumpsuit, “Nah, I think my britches fit me plenty fine.”
• • • • •
“Your reign of terror is coming to an end!” Dr. Jang reported across the lab to Cyrus, who ignored the threats as usual. For the fourth time in as many months, all the scientists, who for the past year cycle had gathered at night to play Conquest of the Ages, assembled to wage war. They each sat at a cubicle showing their own section of the battle in high-definition holograms as they engaged in combat on an imaginary battlefield. They all competed for the Paracelsine Cup, a cracked flagon that Dr. Milliken had stolen from the dinner table one day cycle and had etched on the words ‘Conquest of the Paracelsus.’ The last Saturday of each month cycle, they would all assemble and continue to play until there was only one player remaining. But the cup had spent the entirety of the four months since its creation sitting on Cyrus’s desk, holding down the cleaning card the Shipmate left each week. So far, this night had been no different than the other nights—each of the players had tried to gain their foothold in their own territory before lashing out at others, and Cyrus had constantly moved in with some sort of surprise terrorist attack to slow down one scientist or another. Today, he had set the forests Milliken used for building resources ablaze, and he had dug a moat around Davidson’s farms while he was attacking Jang so Davidson’s peasants could not harvest food for his soldiers without wasting time and resources to fill in the moat or build new farms. Dr. Cohn’s foot soldiers were preoccupied with an annoying keep that Cyrus had erected in front of his mineral mine specifically to impede the construction efforts of Cohn’s men and waste their time, which thanks to Cohn’s bungling, low-level foot soldiers, was being wasted most effectively.
Cyrus sat in his corner cubicle, quiet and focused as usual. Cyrus was a little concerned because Jang, who normally came at him like a Manifest-Destined crusader sacking the last pagan fortress on the planet, was particularly conservative for someone so confident earlier in the day cycle. Cyrus kept his vanguard in his main stronghold and sequestered his champions to a cave opening he had hidden with an observation tower.
Cyrus played his normal, unpredictable game with fresh new tricks that somehow, even though they were anticipated, always managed to surprise the other scientists. Then, as Cyrus’s cavalry engaged Dr. Milliken’s and Dr. Koresh’s combined infantries in a heated skirmish, an attack was launched from either side of his main stronghold. Jang’s infantry had amassed in front of the castle, had quickly filled the moat, and was now bashing relentlessly at the gate. From the rear, a battery of ballistae and catapults buffeted the back wall—an excellent attack, but not unstoppable.
As a precaution, Cyrus had kept his siege engines inside his own stronghold and they returned fire on the engines in the rear. Luckily, Jang’s engines, because of their angle of attack, could only hit the rear wall of the castle. Comfortable in his defenses, and preoccupied with smoking Koresh out of his main fortress, Cyrus sent a small but strong group of foot soldiers and cavalry to eliminate the annoying engines at his rear flank.
Koresh’s men had run for the hills, fleeing desperately with their standard to keep from being eliminated from the match. It wasn’t until Cyrus realized where they were running to that he also realized it was a setup. And when the soldiers Cyrus had sent to stop Jang’s siege engines were ambushed by the men that should have been operating the siege engines, Cyrus realized exactly how much effort had been put into the set up. On closer inspection, the siege engines were out of place—two time-periods out of place. They were fully automatic and only needed two peasants to operate each, rather than the compliment of four field captains and four foot that they should have required. No wonder Jang had been so eager. Cyrus was spread thin from the galvacet monkey chase at Koresh’s fortress, and now, a good portion of Cyrus’s vanguard was being slaughtered right before his eyes.
But it was far from over. Almost as soon as he realized what was happening, Cyrus issued commands to the peasants that had been farming and harvesting wood from the forest around his fortress. The men that had ambushed his defenses came out of the hills and made their way to the front of his fortress. They had already constructed a battering ram and had made short order of the door, but as they rushed in and dispatched the defenders of the base just as quickly as they had dispatched door, they discovered Cyrus’s standard was nowhere to be found. By the time Jang realized the unarmed peasants that manned his bootleg siege engines were being hacked to pieces by Cyrus’s lumberjacks, Jang’s own engines had already been turned against the fortress he now occupied. The engines quickly finished what Jang had started, destroying Cyrus’s former keep and taking Jang’s best men with it. After the destruction was over, Cyrus left the engines where they were because they were well out of the fray.
Cyrus had routed Dr. Cohn and Davidson’s forces earlier, and Torvald was fighting a losing battle against the forces Cyrus had sent just before Jang’s anachronistic siege engines had appeared. And while Cyrus attempted to recover from the assault on his main fortress, Jang and Koresh’s combined forces turned on Milliken.
Jang’s men scoured the battlefield in search of Cyrus’s standard bearers while Koresh replenished his ranks. Then, suddenly, a message went through to the three remaining scientists’ cubicles ‘C. Chamberlain:’s forces have been eliminated.’
Jang let out a long stream of curses in Korean. He was so incensed that he didn’t notice the message was in the wrong color. He didn’t wait until his
anger subsided to turn on Koresh while he uttering something in mixed Korean and English to the effect of, “The cup is still mine!”
But Jang had let Dr. Koresh build up for too long. His forces were more than formidable, and since they were sharing fortresses, the battle quickly became miserable. Jang had created more of his bootleg siege engines and was now using peasants to bombard Koresh’s vanguard in a fortress Jang had lent to him, which Koresh was now trapped inside because Jang had locked the gate. At the same time, Jang sent a search party to finish off Torvald. As soon as Jang’s soldiers had routed Torvald and hoisted his standard above their heads, Cyrus showed his hand. Assassins appeared from the shadows inside Torvald’s fortress and killed the unsuspecting soldiers with alarming speed and efficiency.
“What the hell!” Jang yelled from his cubicle. “Assassins?” It was the first time assassins had been used in a public match because they were considered too weak under normal circumstances. Apparently to Cyrus, this match had ceased to be normal when Jang pulled his war machines out of whatever electronic time portal they had come from.
Because assassins did not wear team colors, Jang was so confused he did not realize Cyrus was still active until Cyrus’s peasants were using the imported siege engines to take out Jang’s catapults and ballistae, which were attacking Koresh’s men.
Jang, having no idea how Cyrus was even still alive, gave up looking for Cyrus’s standard. He regrouped all his troops in front of his own main fortress as the siege engines Cyrus had commandeered positioned themselves for attack.
Jang was entering the commands to launch a fire attack against the ill-equipped peasants that manned the siege engines when it happened. From the shadows of the mineral mine that Cyrus had blocked with a previously useless, but annoying, keep, a horde of infantry flooded the battlefield. They completely swarmed Jang’s better equipped, but less numerous, army. The battle was fierce and bloody on both sides, but Jang’s unprepared forces could not hold back the onslaught. Plus, preoccupied with what seemed like a myriad of foot soldiers, Jang could not stop the siege engines that crumbled the walls of his last remaining fortress. When it was all over, Cyrus’s peasants cakewalked into the remains of the keep and hoisted Jang’s standard high just to add insult to the victory.
There was a light thump as Jang let his head fall to the cubicle top in defeat. He didn’t notice the words, ‘T. Jang’s forces have been eliminated,’ scrolling across his cubicle in bright red—the color they were supposed to be.
Cyrus sat back in his chair relieved. He didn’t realize how nervous he had been until now as a chill moved slowly through his body, tracing the path of the subsiding adrenalin in his blood. He let the wave of standing hairs relax him as he closed his eyes. He hadn’t noticed before how much winning meant to him—not until it looked like it might not happen. He sat back as various back-pats and kudos were sent his way and the other players shuffled out of the codex. He didn’t open his eyes until one hand lingered on his shoulder. He turned to find Jang standing over him, Paracelsine Cup in hand, offering it to him. “Don’t know exactly how you managed to win again, but I’m somewhat glad. Don’t think it would have set well winning this way.”
Cyrus nodded, accepted the cup, and shook Jang’s hand. “You gave me a run for my credits this time,” he said, a firm grip on Jang’s hand as he accepted the cup with his other.
As they released, Jang sat on the cubicle, “Porting those catapults over seemed like a good idea at the time, but how did you know you could use them against me?”
“I didn’t. But I figured in the level they came from, there are no peasants. You need specialized jobbers to operate the siege engines. That’s why we never play that level in the public matches—takes too long to build up the specialty classes. So whatever port you used had to have had controls that were somewhat ubiquitous. I gambled that you hadn’t put a restriction on them so that only your peasants could use them and my gamble paid off.”
“I feel bad because I cheated.”
“Well, for better or worse, half of the Unification War was won from breaking the rules,” Cyrus held the cup up so the light of the codex sent a gleam across it, “A true champion handles whatever is thrown at him in stride.”
“That makes sense,” Jang said as Cyrus set the cup back on the cubicle, “But I still don’t know how you faked your elimination.”
“Well, that was easy. You were so intent on finding my standard and beating me that you didn’t notice the colon after my name and the color of the public message that I sent. All I did was type apostrophe ‘s’ and ‘forces have been eliminated’ hoping you would take the bait and turn on Koresh, because even with the infantry I was rush-building in the mine, there was no way I could stop both of you.”
“I’m impressed,” Jang brushed his hair behind his ear and scratched his cheek, “I don’t feel so bad about losing now.”
Cyrus stood from his chair, picked up the cup, and patted Jang on his back, “Well, the day you do take the cup, you’ll know it won’t be because I fell for some monkey business, or some hound-washed scheme. You’ll know it’s because you beat me, and because you deserve it,” he tipped the cup to Jang, catching another gleam. “Until then, if you want to have a good image of it for your dreams, it will be in my room, on my desk.” Cyrus smiled and left. His smile was genuine, not smug or snide. Jang sighed and chuckled to himself at the joke, with full knowledge that as diplomatic as Cyrus had been about the cheating, and as arrogant as his response might have seemed to anyone else, he meant every word he had just said, and if he had disapproved, he would have said much more.
• • • • •
“Can’t we program the Shipmate to build this?” Dr. Winberg complained, standing over the pile of poles and panels that were organized on the floor in a manner indiscernible to his untrained eye.
“It is programmed to build this, but it takes him too long for him to build it by himself, and we need to understand the intricacies of the design and the construction in the event of Shipmate failure.” Most nodded in agreement with Dr. Tsuchiya, but Dr. Winberg seemed perturbed.
The entire group was there, divided into groups of three with Dr. Thompson and Dr. Tsuchiya wandering from group to group with schematics, helping each group assemble its respective parts. Cyrus stood over his section of neatly organized poles, rigging lines, panels, and links while Tanner and Davidson assembled sections of panels. Cyrus’s brow furrowed as he tried to connect two poles at a linkage. “Bunkus!” Cyrus exclaimed.
Dr. Tsuchiya walked over looking at Cyrus’s schematic. “This is the linkage for the south wall of the longhouse shelter.”
“Lav-reek is what it looks like to me. What moron designed this thing?” Cyrus belted. Tanner shook his head and Davidson laughed. “Actually, I was the moron that designed it,” Dr. Tsuchiya scoffed, “You, however, appear to be the moron that is putting the anchor pole in backward. The rigging line is supposed to go into this hole here. What good would it do in the middle of the long house?”
Davidson tried to quiet his laugh but it burst from him like a sneeze. Even Tanner smiled a little. Cyrus would have laughed as well, but it didn’t seem like Dr. Tsuchiya had meant much humor in his comment. When Dr. Tsuchiya had moved on to Dr. Winberg, Dr. Rousseau, and Dr. Koresh’s section, Cyrus shot a glare over to Davidson who was still trying to hold back laughter. “Chortle it up, you disease ridden Fringe monkey.”
“You know, if your mechanical skill was half as sharp as your wit, we might have our section done already,” Davidson retorted.
It was hard to tell if Cyrus scowled from Davidson’s jest or from the trouble the linkage was giving him, but Davidson assumed if he had been truly offended, or even marginally, the remark would have received an instant, biting response.
Eventually, Cyrus removed the pole from the end it wasn’t supposed to go in. And eventually, they constructed their corner of the longhouse. Cyrus had not realized how large the hangar of the ship reall
y was until, five long hours later, they had completely assembled the shelter, which along with the ship itself, would be the cornerstone of their new civilization.
“We need to get our construction time down to three hours or less,” Tsuchiya reported as they began their deconstruction. The deconstruction itself only took an hour, but it felt like longer as, by then, they were all tired and hungry. Though their bodies had become accustomed to rationed meals and operating with remarkable metabolic efficiency, the work had been taxing and it sent them all shambling to the dinner hall or their beds.
When the work was done, Cyrus stood alone and weary over the organized pile of metal and composites. The remarkably strong composite line that would be used to moor the longhouse to the ground arrested his attention.
The Shipmate washed their clothing every week without fail, and every week, without fail, the clothes came back damp. Cyrus assumed this was a function of the fact that the threat of mildew on a sterilized ship was non-existent, but the threat of shrinkage in even the recycling dryer units on this vessel was unacceptably high. Even so, Cyrus could not abide by wearing damp underwear in a cold room if he didn’t have to—and if he could find a place in his room to attach the ends of the rigging line, he would never have to again.
• • • • •
“What do you miss the most from Earth?” Tanner asked as he hovered over the ephemeris slate in his lap.
“It’s hard to say. I don’t really miss Earth all that much. Even with Dr. Windbag on the ship, I’ve had fewer arguments in the past year than I would have had in a week on that overpopulated rock. I know today being the anniversary and all has made a lot of us homesick, but apart from my son, I say good riddance to that festering ball of misery and woe.”
Tanner set his stylus on the two-dimensional, touch-sensitive screen in his lap. “You don’t miss your wife?” he asked, a look of concern on his face.