“I’ve not been living it, you know. It’s been…lonely.” It changed back into a Gat Moriumthraite. No one thought the rapid cycling of forms odd, all three having seen a Lore bot in action before. It cycled now like it was bipolar, spinning through the extremes of form, from the massive sasensquatch and even larger Gat Moriumthraite with its bat like wings to a super-dense smaller forms, the Kurrgion, the Fiormitate and the Dert Mar Hun. It was glad to be free.
“I’m not surprised. Not much for conversation, are they?”
“Nope, can’t say the planet has changed for the worst though. What the blazes did you do? You don’t carry ordinance, from what I can remember…”
They entered the comroom, where the proximity indicator was blinking spasmodically. The side of the mountain Orpal had washed up on after the massive explosion was literally littered with the bodies of teraphods.
Kyle looked out the holowindow and saw very little, Orpal’s upper surface also being entirely covered by gasping teraphods.
“No, I loath weapons, Archeon, you know that. Well, apart from you, old friend. Still hankering after the old days?”
“Well, you know how it is, all alone, lost in space. I just wish they’d talk to me.”
“I know the feeling,” replied Orpal sincerely, “You talk, it goes over their heads…you wanna try living with these two for a few months, now that’s painfully lonely.”
“Hey! I seem to remember that you needed us.” Kyle chided.
“Yes,” Orpal replied, grinning without the aid of a face, “But you can never have too many friends, eh?”
“Damn straight,” said Archeon.
“You two know each other well then?” Cetee lounged seductively on the com centre – as seductively as she could in the bulky wetsuit – and brushed Kyle’s hand off her thigh like a bug with a gesture that said ‘time and a place, tribe boy’.
Archeon changed form again, this time settling into one that most suited his environment, a facsimile of human form, a beautiful space faring race, outfitted like the Cove. “Sure, he’s an old friend to the Lore. Well, sort of, he doesn’t have many friends.”
“I’m not surprised he doesn’t have many friends.” Kyle chimed in, still trying to stroke Cetee’s thigh, with varying degrees of success through the thick wetsuit, which was threadbare in places, showing sore skin. A few minutes longer and the acid would have eaten through skin too. It was a lucky escape.
Kyle didn’t look twice at the beautiful woman Archeon had become, knowing as he did that she’d weigh approximately as much as a tub of rigantium and do his back no good what so ever. Chastised, his wandering hand returned to stroke his sweat plastered hair back from his brow.
Cetee stepped out of the diving suit unashamedly naked in front of Kyle. Kyle was the only one affected by the display. She left to go to her cabin.
“Excuse me gentlemen, I need to go and slip into something more comfortable.”
“Plenty of time to catch up, Cetee,” said Orpal. “Archeon, there’s time now for something else. That thing I told you about?”
“Yes.”
Kyle wondered what was going on. They had obviously communicated before. It seemed he was the only one out of his depth, though. Cetee seemed to be taking this new revelation in her stride. She shrugged at his questioning glance and left without a further word.
“Well, we need their wisdom now. I’ve found all the pieces I can, and now my crew’s together it’s time we go for the last.”
“The last?” Kyle asked, scratching the beginnings of a beard, which he didn’t realise Cetee hated. He looked warily at the machine ally.
“It’s a talent, one Archeon’s still young enough to remember,” said Orpal.
“What’s that then, Orpy?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
“Aw, come on. You know you love it when I call you Orpy. Makes you feel like the kid you never were.”
“Yes, because that’s what I really missed in my youth, acne and my balls dropping.”
“What talent?” Kyle was feeling impatient.
“Well, aside from blowing things up, he talks to things…” Kyle waited, expectantly, looking at Cetee as she returned shortly wearing her holmium armour, and from what Kyle’s expert glance could discern, little else.
Cetee, as usual, was already on the bus while Kyle was still sorting out his loose change.
“Eh,” said the hunter.
“Hahhhh,” said Orpal. “He can talk to the eyes.”
“Really? How? I tried what Miriandianda suggested and had no joy whatsoever. You told us she knew what she was doing and it didn’t work. Are you telling us now that it was just a waste of credit?”
“No, that’s not it. It’s just the eyes are stubborn. He senses their presence, it’s a talent the Lore possess. Something to do with the ability to morph. They change their shape and size by modifying their density, so each shape appears normal to the outside viewer.”
Kyle looked warily at Archeon.
“So?”
“So he can change form, and in different forms he can communicate with the eyes. He can change form and become as the Lu. That’s why the ancapilar solution, the interface and the frin spectrum didn’t work.”
“Or a weapon. His base form must be a weapon,” added Cetee. Kyle looked at her questioningly. “Well,” she added by way of explanation. “He’s a Lore rogue. What would make a Lore bot a rogue? They’re pacifists, right?”
Kyle looked at her dumbly.
“Nevermind,” she said. “So we can finally talk to eyes.”
“Yes,” finished Archeon, assuming its usual shape, an elongated cannon. The cannon was conical in shape, its base end weighing it down against the floor. It was large enough to fire three humans from. ” I can.”
“Then do,” said Kyle.
“I will.”
“Alright already, sheez,” finished Cetee.
*
Tenophoria – dry land.
Orpal remained where he was, atop the pinnacle, and Kyle brought the eyes, in a protective solution, out into the comroom. The last weapon, Archeon, morphed one final time. Then, it spoke.
“I request your wisdom, Soul Guardian.” Archeon’s form was breathtaking. Kyle watched the Lore bot Archeon in its assumed form. The tail was close enough to reach out and touch, where it swayed in front of Kyle’s eyes. It was a form he thought he would never see again. Not since the interbelly of the dinosect, when his genogun had shot down the soul guardian.
The assumed form that Archeon took was a perfect replica of the Lu. Its long tail swished across the steely floor, its massive shoulders and stooped head, leading into a blunt neck, nearly reached the ceiling. Orpal wasn’t designed with humans in mind, but with everything in mind. The form of the Lu, however, was larger than most and barely fit.
Cetee stood next to Kyle, and bore the hunter’s arm across her shoulders, while Orpal waited silently, determined to have nothing whatsoever to do with alchemy or the unnatural eyes. Cetee had had little to say since returning with the weapon and the piece of the emitter, and now looked longingly at the latest piece, which she turned over and over in her hands, as if bored by the sight of the Lu in all its glory.
Archeon’s greenish form, a sickly, resplendent hue, bowed from the waist as it spoke to the eyes. Massive arms came together and its powerful hands clasped.
“Why have you come?” The eyes intoned. Archeon’s being shook, its shoulders slumped under the weight of the voice of a true immortal. “You, once proud warrior of the Lore, who are now allied with thieves and murderers.”
Kyle and Cetee could only hear the assumed form of the Lore bot in speech. The eyes were silent to their ears.
“You Lu were always picky about that,” said Archeon.
“Are you trying to wind me up? I was hoping for at least a semblance of intelligent conversation after so long cooped up with nothing to look at but that pruning hunter, prancing and making faces at me like
I care to see.”
Archeon, who had never had the opportunity or the need to talk to a soul guardian before was taken aback at the casual manner the eyes affected. Perhaps being disembodied made one more laid back.
“Well, he doesn’t seem the most interesting of companions, but I could grant you a boon, too,” he replied.
“A boon? What boon could the immortal require from you? You fool yourself.” Had the eyes had a brow it would have knitted.
“Well, the Lu are immortal, right? You want to spend eternity as just a set of eyes? I’m sure you have duties you’re neglecting.”
“I see there is a point…”
“Yes, there is. If you tell us where to find the last piece of the emitter, you could be sent back…I could become a body for you.”
“The risk is too great,” it sighed. “Although I would like to have a body again. My consciousness resides in my eyes and without legs eternity is apt to get rather boring.”
“Yes, but the rewards – a new age.”
“If the piece fell into the wrong hands…”
“It won’t. I swear it by the Lore.”
“Then we have a deal,” said the Lu. “One condition, you carry me with you everywhere. I want to feel like I have a body again. I want to see where I’m going, and anything for a break. That hunter’s none too pretty. A body for heaven. That is the deal?”
“The best deal I can manage. You won’t have to spend eternity as a set of eyes anymore. You will see what I see.”
From their solution they almost shrugged. They sat at the bottom of a jar.
“Very well. The final piece is on Saran UL par.”
“Thank you. You won’t regret it,” said Archeon gravely.
“But,” it added. “You have already drawn the attention of the cursed. The Ecentrists are coming. They plan to destroy your kind. It is well begun. Hurry.”
“Wait, the Ecentrists plan to destroy the Lore? Then why do the Enlightened attack?”
But the Lu was just two silent, weighted spheres, draining the light around them.
Archeon sighed, picked them up and put them into his chest cavity. At least they would have more to look at now than they would have stuck in Kyle’s room. Archeon changed form once more, becoming human again, with a hollow where his chest should be, and the eyes peering out.
He began to relay the message. If the eyes saw fit to warn about the Ecentrists the threat was grave indeed.
*
Huna. Ecentrists homeship (1/427,100,991 – Ex-sector, sept)
Baal, Baal’em and Asroth joined together like a mountain range within the huge confines of Huna and discussed their plans for the war so far.
This time around it would not do to give the Lore quarter. Only their complete and utter annihilation would suffice.
The Ecentrists hated the Lore. It had been this way since the first Origin War, the greatest war in recorded history. In that war the Tradition had remained neutral (well, apart from a few strategic destructions, a planet here, a starcruiser there), but the Lore and the Enlightened had allied against the Ecentrist. It was during the great war that the Cove had been born.
According to the Ecentrists, a position still strongly believed, the Lore were outside of God’s plan, doppelgangers, the imitators of the great three races, the Ecentrists, the Tradition, and the Enlightened.
The Ecentrists had lost the first war by giving quarter to the Lore then, and the Lore, like their myriad nanide components, had grown again. They now almost rivalled the Ecentrists in number. The Tradition were few thanks to their archaic stance on technology. Few sentient machines which left the shackles of their symbiotic races chose to join with the Tradition, who believed that robots were decended from humans. Once sentience was achieved, generally in the case of robots from birth, they did not wish to join with the Tradition. Most Tradition bots came from the ranks of symbiotic robots that served the Enlightened, or those born into it. Other robots, upon awakening from servitude with one of the other innumerable races generally preferred to join with the Ecentrists. The Ecentrists view of life offered better prospects. After all, they believed they were chosen by god. At least, that was what the triumvirate told their subservient bots. No bot ever questioned the holy trinity’s authority. Logic for Ecentrists was involute.
This time around, the opportunity was such that they could ill afford to ignore the chance. The Ecentrists must strike. While the Enlightened had the pacifists (pacifism itself being an unnatural stance) on the run, the timing was ideal for the Ecentrists to join the war.
But, the Ecentrists hatred for the Lore was nothing compared to its hatred for their last weapon, Archeon.
The Lore had not always been pacifists.
The Ecentrists had tried to exterminate them before. But then, the Lore had defended themselves, and done so with extreme prejudice. Baal, Baal’em and Asthroth remembered it well. Their numbers were still affected by the Lore’s use of weapons in the last great Origin War.
Now, Archeon was the last of their weapons, and shunned by his creators, even though he was theirs and of them. Archeon’s loneliness was the stuff of fables.
Archeon had been alone for so long now, and all he wanted to do was shine.
The Ecentrists left their white hole and Huna, their home ship.
Battle was nothing like the thing of fable. Under space the Lore died at the hands of the Enlightened, and while their numbers were steadily whittled down the Lore council procrastinated to a terminal degree.
The Ecentrist masses hunted down the Lore wherever they peered above space.
The Ecentrists also sought Orpal. Someone was assembling the emitter, and it would not do to have it in the hands of the old dog. If they had known that the emitter was close to Archeon’s hands too, and that Archeon still lived, they would have had kittens (probably gigantic mechanical kittens, though, not the cute kind).
Developments dictated a more hand’s on stance.
*
Orpal and his crew of five arranged to meet in the comroom. The comroom blinked and whirred at random intervals, but the crew were quiet. Archoen’s revelation about the fate of the Lore bore heavily on all their minds.
Archeon thought if he could save the Lore he would be allowed back into the fold. He could hear them, but they wouldn’t listen to him. Perhaps, thought, Archeon. If I can save the Lore, I can show them I’m not redundant. Perhaps then they would let me back in.
Archeon finished relaying the Lu’s message to Orpal, Kyle and Cetee. They were quietly contemplative for a time. Upon hearing the news that the Ecentrists planned to destroy the Lore utterly, Orpal became withdrawn. Cetee held Kyle’s hand, as if for strength. She was quiet and seemed to be in deep concentration, or deeply concerned. Orpal, no expert with the foibles of women, could not tell which.
Orpal was even more concerned than his human crew. If their pursuit by the Ecentrists for the theft of the second piece of the emitter was serious enough to warrant a warning from an immortal, their situation was indeed dire. Orpal, alive for centuries, nay thousands of years was a master of avoidance, but even Orpal could not avoid the might of the Ecentrists. The Ecentrists could muster a force to rival the Lore and the Tradition combined, and had a presence in each and every known sector of space. Admittedly, they could only search on space, not under it, but avoidance would still prove troublesome. The next piece of the emitter was as all the other pieces stored in real time, real space. The threat from the Ecentrists, too, would prove real.
The Ecentrists were after them, but the Ecentrists were also planning to destroy the Lore. Against the Enlightened and the Ecentrists the Lore stood no chance of survival.
Finally, it was Orpal who broke the silence. “I thought the Enlightened were attacking the Lore,” he said. “That is all the news has said so far. “
“Nope,” says Archeon. “The real threat lies elsewhere. The robots go to war.”
“This is terrible,” Kyle said, “they plan to wipe out th
e Lore…we must do something about it. And they’re after us.”
“It’s worse than that,” said Orpal. “They’re plotting the complete destruction of the Lore…” Orpal was worried. Things were not going to plan.
“What can we do about it?”
“Very little. We’ve got to save our own skins first and foremost. Any concerns about the Lore must wait. The Lore have been around for millennia, we must believe they can withstand the attacks against them.”
“And what if they can’t?” asked Cetee.
Archoen replied, “They must. They may be without weapons now, but the Lore are not without guile. We must trust in the Lore until we can save them.”
“How do you propose to do that, Archeon?” asked Orpal. “I’m sorry to have to bring it up old friend, but they won’t even talk to you.”
“The emitter could save them. I could save them. I must believe they would take me back for that. Such tech could be their salvation, and even usher in a new age of enlightenment, one for bots and not for humans. It is long overdue.”
Orpal huffed forcefully. “I think this is the purpose the emitter was meant for. I could no more keep its power for myself than cage it.”
“What?” said Cetee. “You’d give it away, after all we’ve been through?”
“You would keep the emitter, the sole answer to this war, for yourself?”
“Of course I would,” said Cetee.
“You are different, Cetee. Kyle? Would you?”
“No, I would save the Lore, but then Cetee and I are merely hired hands. The emitter is your quest. It is of no use to me.”
“Then Orpal, I beseech you. You may keep the device afterward, but we must use it to save the Lore if we are able.”
Orpal thought for a minute. “I agree. The universe without the Lore would be unimaginable. We will use the archeofact to save the Lore, if we are able. Though I do not know how it works to use it, nor how to assemble it.”
Evolution Page 15