Eden's Revenge (Eden Paradox Book 3)

by Barry Kirwan

  “Correct.”

  This time it wasn’t Ukrull. A Tla Beth had buzzed in front of them. Pierre had the curious feeling he should bow, but restrained himself. The creature was the shape of a rounded hourglass encircled by a dozen vertical metallic rings, hues on each one shifting like oil on water into infra and ultra frequencies. Pierre adjusted his eyesight so he could pick up all twenty-seven official Grid colours. It was impressive, mainly because he knew these rings were processing terabytes of data every second; the light show was a side effect.

  The top and bottom parts of the hourglass – the Tla Beth’s ‘body’ – were black and white, like a version of the yin-yang symbol, ubiquitous in more than a hundred Grid sub-cultures. The top half was mainly dark with smatterings of white, the lower half the reverse. Drops of white – whatever they were – sifted through the Tla Beth’s hourglass ‘waist’ like liquid sand, altering the balance of black and white.

  Pierre focused. This was a War Council meeting. Ukrull delivered his briefing, and Pierre watched as holos flashed at an almost subliminal rate: star charts, figures and casualty statistics, attack formations, dark worm incursions, strategic assessments, all silently transmitted between Ukrull and the Tla Beth. Pierre couldn’t follow all of it, but the net result was plain; they were steadily losing against Qorall.

  Abruptly the transmissions stopped. The Tla Beth’s upper half was almost black, a single white dot in its centre. It spoke to Pierre in flawless English.

  “We have located one of the Benefactors, a Kalarash.”

  Pierre knew better than to ask where; undoubtedly the information had already been uploaded into the Ice Pick’s nav-mind. The Tla Beth answered the next questions before Pierre had finished thinking them.

  “The second one. Tla Beth and Kalarash have uneasy relationship. Yes.”

  Pierre tried to catch up fast, reverse-engineering his questions. The one that left the galaxy, or its mate Hellera, who was still somewhere inside the galaxy? Next. Why send us, why don’t you go find the Kalarash? Next. Is it because of what happened to the Level Eighteen race?

  Pierre nodded, but the Tla Beth and Ukrull had gotten bored waiting and were conversing again, using some kind of ‘picting’, symbols appearing and dissolving in the ether between them.

  Pierre had never been very emotional, having been raised by two scientists, even before his father had interfered with Pierre’s genetics, mutating his intelligence at the cost of his ability to love. Or so he’d thought until his brief affair with Kat. Since then, after the Ossyrians had tried to help him change and his nannites had spiralled out of control, catapulting him to Level Ten, he’d lost almost all emotional feeling. He’d never looked back. It was a scientist’s dream to become more intelligent, to understand so much more, to travel the galaxy and see its wonders first-hand, in the company of someone even more intelligent. A scientist always needed a challenge, and for Pierre finding new questions motivated him almost as much as deriving answers.

  But he had thought of Kat over the years, wondering what had become of her and the daughter he’d abandoned shortly after her birth. Sure, he had bigger things to attend to. But recently – and he was convinced this was somehow Ukrull’s doing – he was almost remembering how to feel, how to care. And he ‘felt’ something now. He tried to remember which emotion it was, what label to apply. To know was to quantify, so he made an instantaneous assessment, even though he knew that such numbers were neither stable nor independent. What he ‘felt’ was 41% anxiety, 27% concern for two people he’d not seen in eighteen years and – this was the one that surprised him – 32% indignation at the way the Tla Beth and Ukrull were ignoring him, and the fact that they’d lost touch with the Kalarash in the first place. The 32% increased, polarising him into a state of something approaching anger.

  The picting stopped. Ukrull turned toward Pierre. The Tla Beth had a helix of white coiling in its upper half. It was hard to tell when Ukrull was grinning, but Pierre reckoned he was. The Tla Beth spoke.

  “You are right. We became complacent, arrogant. We felt we did not need the Benefactors anymore. And your next question: can a single Kalarash defeat Qorall and his ever-growing army? Unlikely. But she must try.”

  For a split-second, white surged into the Tla Beth’s upper half, swirled, and then squirted back into the lower half, the rings all turning a pale green. Pierre had no idea what that meant.

  The Tla Beth continued. “If you are unsuccessful, we will consider surrender. Too much of the galaxy has already been lost.”

  Pierre’s quicksilver eyes narrowed. “But…” He gazed first at the Tla Beth, then Ukrull. Neither said any more.

  Pierre bowed to the Tla Beth, and then nodded to Ukrull. “Then let’s go.” He recalled what Blake, his former commander, used to say. It seemed appropriate.

  “Time’s burning.”

  Pierre ate a small plate of nutrients as he and Ukrull hurtled through Transpace toward the Diamond Nebula where the last Kalarash known to exist in the galaxy, Hellera, was reportedly hiding. The food was the perfect mix for his health, and had a bland, metallic taste. He hadn’t changed his weekly ‘meal’ for ten years. Ukrull chewed noisily on a bone, occasional crunching sounds preceding a spray of gristle and reptilian saliva that Ukrull would leave for the Ice Pick’s cockpit microbes and fauna to digest and reprocess into amino acids, including some of those Pierre was eating. Pierre forced down his last mouthful with an audible gulp, then made sure he got to the waste recycling closet before Ukrull. Pierre could mentally disconnect his nasal senses if he chose to, but he simply preferred to be first.

  Afterwards, Pierre decided he needed some privacy. He slipped into an inner trance to take stock of events and his own situation. He and Ukrull had seen first-hand Qorall’s strategy, brilliant in military terms, and utterly ruthless. But Pierre felt he was missing something, something obvious. For eighteen years he had had no truck with something as fuzzy as intuition, and yet he couldn’t deny he was uncomfortable with the Tla Beth’s plan.

  For the first time in years, he wished Kat were there to advise him, he would welcome her instinct. But at Level Ten, he could do the next best thing: he focused and recalled every aspect of her, every conversation, inflexion of voice, eye movement, pupil dilation… In his mind an avatar of Kat arose, facing him in a white room.

  “Hello, Pierre,” the avatar said. “Platinum suits you. It’s your colour.”

  Pierre felt pleased at first, then caught himself – was he pleased with the simulation, or to see her again? Just an avatar, he reminded himself – let’s keep this scientific; clinical. He addressed the slim, short-haired brunette with the grey eyes and crooked smile. “You have access to all my premises. We go to meet the female Kalarash known as Hellera. What do you advise?”

  She cocked her head. “I missed you. I thought it would go away; you know, fade. It didn’t. Not much, anyway. Not nearly enough.”

  He had an urge to clear his throat. This wasn’t going to plan. He thought about removing some of the emotional algorithms his brain had engineered into her avatar, but of course that would affect her intuition. He had to play along.

  “I… missed you too, in a way.”

  She glanced away. “Whatever. Your daughter – Petra – of course you remember her name, it’s the last word you spoke to me. She’s grown up into quite the young lady, but she’s never even met you, her father.” Her eyes flashed dark. Anger, he realised. But she continued, waving a hand dismissively. “Okay, back to your agenda. You’re seeing something that the Tla Beth are missing, but you’re also avoiding an obvious solution.” She folded her arms, stared at him.

  Pierre knew the first part, what he was seeing. “That Qorall is evil.” To the Tla Beth such a concept would be seen as too vague and superstitious, foolish even. Pierre considered it, letting it ‘run’ in his head. The Tla Beth thought Qorall wanted to overtake the galaxy, to be its supreme commander. That made sense to Grid Society and its masters, who valued i
ntelligence above all else, and ultimately order through control. But what if Qorall wanted revenge? What if he was not only intelligent, but consumed by two billion years of rage against whatever the Kalarash had done to him? The thought stream and all its implications condensed into fact in his mind. “Qorall wants to destroy the galaxy? But why?”

  She walked up to him, held his shoulders. It had a curious effect on him, and he didn’t understand why, since both his image and the avatar were figments of his mind. Still, he didn’t shrug her off. Her hands felt warm. He remembered Kat’s touch, a long time ago, when he’d been a different Pierre. It had meant so much to him then. She let go. He felt a pang. Why did she let go?

  “Pierre, this galaxy was nurtured by Qorall’s nemesis, the Kalarash. It’s their garden, it means something to them. He wants to hurt them. Maybe he’s only pretending to take over the galaxy. He’ll leave nothing but cold rock, no light, no stars left burning.”

  “Like last time,” he said, recalling the legends of the War two billion years ago that had left the Jannahi galaxy dead.

  “Petra has your eyes. Well, not those ones obviously, not silver, but you know, like you had before. It’s why I could never forget you.”

  Pierre felt unbalanced, disturbed. But he resisted the urge to tamper with her algorithms, because he hadn’t yet seen the solution she’d mentioned.

  “Show me those eyes, Pierre, then I’ll tell you.”

  He felt something, a shade of an emotion. Indignation, he recalled. “This is a little absurd, you know you are an avatar.”

  She shrugged. “Humour me. Or yourself. I’m a construct of your mind. Maybe you’re trying to answer more than the question you think you are interested in.”

  Was it possible? He made an adjustment to his matrix, his silver eyes rippling to be replaced by his old human ones. He still stored their DNA signature. He thought it would make no difference, this was all inside his mind in any case. But it did. He saw her differently, as if she really were Kat, not just an avatar. She gazed at him. A smile, a non-crooked one, broadened her lips. He felt an urge to mimic the gesture.

  “Thank you,” she said. She broke off her gaze and turned away, speaking to the nondescript, out-of-focus walls in his mind. “You go to seek Hellera as an ally, to fight Qorall.”

  “Yes.”

  “But the Tla Beth think she will not be enough on her own to defeat him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then don’t see her as an ally.”

  Pierre still didn’t get it. How was this possible? What was the point of being Level Ten if a normal human could see something he could not? He suddenly wondered if she were really an avatar, or something else. But that wasn’t possible.

  She said nothing further. He played back her words. Hellera. Ally. The antonym of ally would be enemy. Not an enemy. Wrong track. Defeat. Synonym of defeat is surrender. No. Something else. Third way. Not defeat. Qorall more powerful. Capitulate. Placate. Hellera…”

  Kat turned back to him. “There, that wasn’t so hard was it?”

  He stared at her. “You think we should capture Hellera and hand her over to Qorall?”

  “He wants to hurt someone.” She walked up close to him. “Pierre, you’re still a good man, it’s why you haven’t thought of it, but it’s an option you must consider.”

  “For the sake of the galaxy?”

  She shrugged. “You called me here to dig up what you didn’t want to face. You now have more cards in your hand. It’s just an option, you don’t have to take it.”

  She looked small, human, fragile. He placed a hand on her shoulder, then another. She looked up at him. He pulled her towards him, felt her warmth against his cool platinum skin. He let her avatar fade from his arms, dissolving her construct.

  Pierre returned from the depths of his mind to the surface, back inside the Ice Pick. The Hohash had been active, he noticed, but it went dark again. Ukrull was gazing at it. Pierre assumed he’d been interfacing with it for some reason.

  Pierre wondered whether to tell Ukrull about this potential game plan. He didn’t know how far the Ranger’s telepathy could penetrate. Too far, probably.

  “Ukrull, we have to talk.”

  The Ranger pulled back from the controls, clasped his fore-claws together, and faced Pierre with a hard stare. He then leaned forward, close enough that his breath made Pierre recoil.

  “What?” Pierre said.

  Ukrull leant back in his chair, and snorted. “Okay. We talk. First, what wrong with your eyes?”

  Chapter Eight

  Interrogation

  Louise no longer liked what she saw in the washroom mirror when she got up in the morning. She’d just finished her daily physical training routine and showered. The face was still pretty enough, her body trim and fit, but her expression betrayed a wrong turn she’d made somewhere along the line, a sacrifice that went against her inner nature. She continued to stare as she stood in the full-body dryer, warm jets of air rippling her supple skin. She reflected that her life split neatly into four parts.

  Before Earth’s Third World War she’d been ‘normal’, a teacher. Louise could barely remember what that even felt like, who she was back then: naïve and dumb, asleep, drifting through life. The War changed her forever; signing up then getting captured, tortured and raped every day for a year before their camp was liberated and she took her revenge. She’d joined the Chorazin, the global Interpol, fought against the bad guys – though it never really mattered to her who they were – alongside Vince.

  She stepped out of the dryer enclosure, put on a string and donned her one-piece black uniform with its Chinese collar, Qorall’s vermillion circle insignia above the left breast. It reminded her of the Chorazin outfit, and of Vince. Those had been the good times, when work and love came together in a resounding, satisfying collision. Except she outgrew the Chorazin and became a double agent for the Alicians. Her third phase. She still could have recovered at that point, but then Micah came along.

  Louise brushed her teeth. Micah had gotten Vince killed on Esperia, while trying to kill her. She spat out the frothy foam, rinsing her mouth. That had been the sharp point of inflexion on the curve of her life, into a downward spiral. She’d ended up irrevocably pitted against humanity, whom she now despised and believed should be eradicated. But her ‘career path’, ending up working for Qorall in her fourth phase, had also left her at odds with Sister Esma and the Alicians, her only remaining ‘family’.

  These last eighteen years had been intriguing and fascinating, exploring the Grid and all its species. But lately it had all been ultimately unsatisfying. What was the point? Rather, what was the point for her, personally? She’d had a few lovers here and there, the Mannekhi being the closest physically, but no one that mattered. So, where the hell was she going with her life? It reminded her of one of those pathetic job questions during her annual appraisal back on Earth: “Where do you see yourself in five years time?” She quit the bathroom.

  Louise walked to Kat’s room. Aramisk, the stocky, dark-haired Mannekhi girl with an impudent tongue that would get her killed one day, sat staring at a pad beside the twitching body of Kat. The Hohash mirror was locked in a rectangular brace at the foot of Kat’s bed, active but unable to leave.

  “Is she still in the dream, Aramisk?”

  “Yes, Arctura.”

  Even her Q’Roth name now sounded wrong to her. She studied Kat. This had been Qorall’s idea. Let her rampage through the info-streams till she dug up something from Qorall’s enemies about Hellera, the missing Kalarash, or the other one, Kalaran, who left the galaxy just before Esperia’s quarantine. The Kalarash were the only real potential threat to Qorall, but he couldn’t locate them.

  Louise reluctantly acknowledged she liked Kat, or at least respected her, which put her in a very select but important category in Louise’s world. It was probably because Kat had never truly given up her struggle since her capture two years ago. Similar to Louise in that enemy camp back
in Thailand, Kat was biding her time, even now trying to play both sides, pretending she was working for Louise and Qorall. A little naïve, but at least she had integrity, a quality few possessed, no matter their Level.

  But this controlled dreaming procedure, and its next interrogation phase would almost certainly kill her. Louise kept her voice flat. “How are her vitals?”

  “Within tolerance. The human psyche is complex and maladaptive; her subconscious knows she is being manipulated even though her conscious mind doesn’t. That creates physiological stresses that most higher-level species have outgrown. In her case it will eventually trigger cardiac trauma and irreparable dysfunction.” Aramisk watched Louise’s reaction. “I’ll do whatever I can to keep her alive... if that’s what you want, I mean after Qorall has the information.”

  Louise cleared her throat. “Yes. Do that. She may prove useful afterwards.”

  Aramisk glanced at the Hohash. “That, however, I have no control over whatsoever. The connection between them runs deep. Psychophysiologically it connects to the node in her head, but over the past two years bridges have built inside her brain from the frontal lobe and hippocampus to the brain stem, the reticular formation.”

  “Your point?”

  Aramisk glanced back towards Kat. “I believe it could kill her if it chose to do so.”

  Louise didn’t need the rest spelled out. The Hohash clearly had a strong link with Kat – it also ‘liked’ her, for want of a better word, and was protective towards her. Hohash were always destined to be servants to somebody. But its higher goal would always be to protect its creators, the Kalarash. So, today they would test its loyalties to the limit.