by James Murdo
We can do anything.
“Why are you helping me, Ciqalo? You’ve waited all this time for me and Tolren.”
It’s my path.
“How’ve you done it all?”
I’m a machine-lect.
They carried on walking to the hatch-point. “I know you’re a machine-lect, but what actually are you, Ciqalo? How did you… appear in the Galphranx?”
The sphere you carried–
“The broken connection sphere?”
It’s not a connection sphere. It’s a backup node, from a ship belonging to a civilisation far different to yours. The Galphranx understood this. It is their function. It integrated the sphere.
“It integrated you?” Seremend paused, trying to understand what she had just been told. She mulled it over, before responding, slowly, “When I lost the sphere – in the red territory with the fumes… I came to consciousness and the sphere was gone. Is that when?”
I assume so.
“You don’t know?”
They reached the hatch-point. Ciqalo moved around it in the opposite direction to Seremend.
It’s been a long time. There are certain gaps in my memory.
“You’ve forgotten?” She looked at Ciqalo as it approached her from the other side. “You’re different.”
In what way, Seremend?
“I don’t know, but you’ve changed.” With no response forthcoming, she changed the subject. “Tolren’s going to come through this hatch-point? You’re sure?”
It makes sense. It’s his path to me.
“To us,” she corrected it.
*
Back in the laboratory, Seremend watched the platform rising elegantly from the middle of the floor.
“This is why I don’t have to wait for Tolren?”
It is.
“What will it be like?”
Sleeping.
“Shouldn’t I wait?”
You will be tempted to leave.
“You think I should, don’t you?”
You have the choice.
She walked around the platform and traced its soft edges with her fingers.
“Will you wake me when he arrives?”
Yes.
“Will you sleep as well?”
There’s much I still need to learn about the Construct. I will remain awake.
“Well.” She placed her pack against the wall, clambered onto the platform and lay down. “Before I change my mind.” She lowered her voice and said, “Thank you.”
A faint white light shone over Seremend, from the neck down.
“What’s that?” she asked, craning her neck forward.
Can you move?
She tried to move her arms. “No.”
It’s for your own safety, while you sleep.
“Ciqalo, why did you have to ask?”
Ciqalo did not reply. Seremend strained to crane her neck further forwards. It was waiting, motionless, next to her.
“Ciqalo?”
I must admit, I’m not exactly certain how this particular device works. I had assumed you would be put in stasis immediately.
“I thought you created everything in this laboratory. It’s your laboratory.”
It is my laboratory, now.
“Ciqalo?” A scared expression spread across her face. “Tracker?” she asked in a whisper.
Suddenly, it became obvious. Certain confusing answers, half-explanations and an odd unfamiliarity that had not been there before. It was not Ciqalo she had met on the other side of the hatch-point upon entering the Inner Layer, it was Tracker.
The Galphranx slid slowly away from her. At the same time, her eyes became heavy and she lost consciousness.
PART 6
49
TRACKER’S TRAP
Seremend stirred and opened her eyes. The laboratory was dimmer, although there was the same peripheral shimmer about everything as before. She sat up and looked around. There was no one else in the room. No Tracker. No one.
She swivelled her legs around. They felt surprisingly heavy, despite her sleep having been so brief. Her pack was still there, next to the wall. She picked it up and slung it around her back. When it was fastened, she paid more attention to the rest of the room. All the screens were now blank – none showed the swirling images of the Construct anymore.
Her heart beat rapidly. She rushed towards the part of the laboratory she knew to be the entrance and tentatively brought her arm up. The wall sizzled lightly around her skin and dissolved away. She pushed her head through. Outside, all was as beautiful as before. With great effort, she tore her thoughts away from it all – surviving was more important.
She waited briefly for the sound of Tracker coming, as she had assumed would be the case, but none came. No alarm, nothing. The loudest noise came from her stomach, and she realised she was starving.
Tracks on the floor where the low-lying vegetation had been flattened caught her attention. There was a new path leading around the outside of the laboratory. She cautiously followed it, walking around while glancing all about. Upon seeing what waited on the other side of the laboratory, she froze, almost falling to the ground in fear. Tracker waited for her, motionless. It had not needed to chase or track her down, she had foolhardily wandered right up to it.
“Please… please.” Her throat was strangely dry.
Tracker was much thinner than before, almost the same circumference as her own shoulders now.
Neither of them moved. Seremend did not bother to run, knowing it could easily outpace her. She waited.
Feed.
She stared at it, incredulous.
Please.
She shook her head, slowly.
Not…
She waited.
Tracker.
She laughed sarcastically. “Another trick? Why?”
The Galphranx made no further communications, or movements. It was deathly still.
“Ciqalo?” she asked.
There was still no response. Hesitantly, she walked up to it. The familiar, blue circles up and down its body were dimmed, no longer as light as they had once been.
Feed.
A tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m sorry, I can’t. I can’t. How do I know it’s you?” She tried to clear her throat. “In the red territory… when the Galphranx took the broken connection sphere from me, or the backup node, whatever it was… what was its name? The creature we found there, who spoke to us?”
The Galphranx was silent.
“Tell me!” she said, bravely. “Tracker didn’t know.” She turned around and began to walk back around the laboratory.
Sky…
She stopped.
Sky-Soarer.
Breathing in deeply, she swung her pack around, and took out a packet of food. “I’m having some first.” She narrowed her eyes at the Galphranx. “Just in case.”
When she finished, she opened a new packet and walked towards it. There was no movement from the Galphranx. She held the open packet in an outstretched arm. “Here.”
Nothing happened.
“Not even going to open a mouth?” She asked, incredulously. “Fine.” She grimaced and pushed at the top of one of the blue circles. The skin felt hard, leathery, and cold. A small gap appeared, and she forced the packet through. The Galphranx felt just as cold inside as outside.
Withdrawing her hand, she waited.
More.
Sighing, she opened another packet, and fed it to the Galphranx.
More.
She repeated the process, over and over again. Soon, she had no food packets left. “That’s all I have,” she said, pulling her hand out. The Galphranx felt warmer than before and had started to wiggle like it used to. Through all the feeding, it had begun to fill out, gaining in size in a manner that seemed overly commensurate to the amount of food.
She stepped back, watching its base concentrically expand over more of the ground. The blue circles around its body had steadily brightened.
Fin
ally. It’s been a long time, Seremend.
“Ciqalo?”
It’s me, Ciqalo.
More tears splashed down her cheeks, and she threw her arms around it.
We don’t have long. Tracker will know I’ve been released. We were connected, but now that is broken. And it’s well fed.
“What do we do?”
Ciqalo lurched away from her and Seremend stepped back.
It is coming.
“Where?”
I don’t know. We must go back.
“Back?”
Ciqalo was already moving along the path, around the laboratory. She ran behind it.
We need to return to the Outer Layer. It will find us anywhere we go here. There is nothing I can do in time.
“Through the…” she said, panting. “Through the hatch-point?”
There’s no other way.
“What about Tolren?”
He has not yet arrived. None of the copies have. You have been asleep for a long time. Tracker used what I made to keep you here as a trap for Tolren.
“Tracker has been waiting all this time?”
We both have.
They reached the closest archway leading into the golden dome containing the hatch-point and continued in. A strange sound resonated through the passageway. Seremend stopped.
Continue, do not stop.
“But it’s ahead, it’s–”
A loud skidding sound behind them made her spin around. Tracker was there, larger than she had ever seen a Galphranx before – it was almost unable to fit inside the archway. It dwarfed Ciqalo. Without needing any further encouragement, she ran.
The awful sound of the gigantic skidding resonated all around the archway. Once she was nearly at the other end of the archway, she turned around. Tracker was terrifyingly close. Ciqalo stopped impossibly quickly and whipped backwards, towards Tracker.
“Ciqalo!” she shouted, losing her balance and falling to the ground. Ciqalo and Tracker were both fully extended. Before, Ciqalo’s many mouths and stretched body would have terrified her. This time, she only felt fear for it. Tracker was so much larger, and more powerful. It gnashed and lashed at Ciqalo, dragging it about with its many mouths, throwing it around with ease.
She tried to push herself up, when something grabbed her from behind and lifted her up by her shoulders. She looked around, bewildered. It was Tolren.
Speechless, she grabbed his face in her hands. He smiled strangely at her and turned to face Tracker. She pulled at his clothes. “No, don’t!” There was something at his hip – a flask.
She let go as he bent his legs, propelling himself rapidly through the archway and slamming into Tracker, who barely moved. One of Tracker’s mouths latched onto him and swung him down towards the other end of the archway. Almost concurrently, another mouth bit into Ciqalo and swung it after the copy. Immediately, Tracker resumed its fierce rush towards her.
She stumbled and ran, looking with terror behind her. Bursting into the open space, Tracker caught up with her. It shoved her powerfully, and she was flung to the ground, skidding away from it. Hands grabbed her from behind again, lifting her up. Other footsteps sounded around. She looked from side-to-side, in confusion. More copies were rushing past her, running, crawling, gliding, one – that she well recognised – had three legs, some even flew. They smothered Tracker. Ciqalo returned, rushing into the fray. The force of numbers overwhelmed Tracker. The whole space surrounded by arches now seemed completely filled with copies.
A warm hand planted itself on Seremend’s right shoulder. It felt different. She turned around.
“Finally,” Tolren smiled, pulling her into an embrace, “I’ve found you.”
50
LONG EXPECTANCY
Tracker was restrained and under guard by several copies. Seremend and Tolren held hands as they followed Ciqalo to its laboratory. Tolren’s head darted around as they walked, taking in the surroundings for the first time.
“Everything’s shimmering,” he said, excitedly. “It’s so intense. But when I try to look, the shimmering–”
“Disappears,” Seremend finished for him. “Keeps you wanting to look for more.”
Ciqalo stopped when it reached the white entrance wall.
Come inside when you’re ready.
It moved forwards and disappeared inside. Seremend smiled as Tolren’s eyes widened upon seeing Ciqalo seemingly walk through the wall.
“Well,” she said. “You came through.”
“I did,” he said. “The copies showed me how.”
“You led them through with you. I don’t think anyone expected that.”
“Some of them. There are still so many left. But… in the cave, and when the hatch-point opened… something changed within them. They’re no longer copies, they’re something else. They have other memories. I think they’re connected to Ciqalo.”
“Where’s Memories of Hope?”
“She stayed behind.”
“I thought she might wait for the rest.” She nodded thoughtfully. “Hey…” She took off her pack and delved inside. “Here – I said I’d look after it for you.” She held out the flybo for him to take.
“Better not have damaged it.” He grinned.
“It was damaged when you gave it to me!” she teased.
“Maybe hold onto it for a little while longer… it’s a little heavy,” he said, passing it back to her.
She put it back into her pack. “Lucky I’m so strong,” she teased. Her face became more serious. “What about Prood?”
“She found another of her kind. They had a different path to take.”
“I’m glad.”
“Me too,” he said with a smile. “It’s good to finally meet the Original.”
Surprised, she stared into his eyes. “I wasn’t the one they called the Original. It was you.”
“I know you said that,” Tolren said, grinning as he took a step closer. “That’s what you told me in the Spires. But it was never me, it was you. Memories of Hope was the only copy of the Original. You’re special.” He squeezed her hands. “Why d’you think I came all this way?”
A self-concocted legend.
“Oi!” Seremend said sharply, “I thought you were going to give us some time.”
Time’s not linear in this place, you should know that by now. And besides, no point in you two exchanging half-speculations. Come in.
Seremend shot Tolren a look of mock-annoyance, and he shook his head, grinning. “Come on, then,” he said.
They both walked through the white wall and into the laboratory, which was as bright as the first time she had entered. Ciqalo was in the middle. Some of the screens were working again, showing the depictions of the Construct. Others were flashing back into life.
“Now we’re all here,” Seremend said. “At last.”
Indeed. I have many things to tell you.
“Let’s start with Tracker,” Seremend said. “What happened?”
“And what is it?” asked Tolren.
“Why was it after Tolren?” Seremend asked.
Tracker is a part of Tolren.
“What?” Seremend said.
Tolren, do you remember the device you found implanted within your Alexis-ring – the work of Quesimone?
He nodded. “That’s a name I thought I’d never hear again. Of course, the tracking device…” His voice trailed off.
The device was infused with your people’s latest advances in machine-lect technology. Primitive, but viable. When you were taken into the Construct by the Spires, you were not the only sentient aboard the transport ship. Later on, when you and Seremend extracted the device, you separated it from yourself. Like finds like, in this place. It is undeniably attracted. It was inevitable that the Construct would attempt to reunite you.
“The tracking device was alive?” Tolren asked, alarmed.
My guess is that it was found by a Galphranx, at some point, the same as for me. The Galphranx then combined with it. It woul
d appear the Galphranx is a species designed for finding and integrating with machine-lect intelligences.
“Tracker wasn’t completely making that up, then,” Seremend said, unable to hide the resentment in her voice.
That much, it understood. You see, the connection sphere you thought you carried was actually a mirror-nodule encased in grey-triamond – a backup copy, from when my ship was destroyed. I created many in order to both record and save myself, my crew, and to be able to continue with our mission. It was damaged though – you were also right about that. I was unable to interact with the external environment.
Seremend nodded quickly. “So, it followed me because of its attraction to you… the backup node, and once it had the chance, it integrated with you.”
Correct.
“Are you the same as Tracker?” Tolren asked.
No, very different. But as for Tracker, it has only been doing what it was designed to. It tracks Tolren and is drawn to him. When you came across it for the first time together, within the Galphranx, it was confused. I suspect it was only recently integrated. That’s probably why it didn’t go after Tolren in an empty module when it could have – it didn’t understand.
“What do you mean ‘together’?” Seremend asked. “That was the first time we came across it.”
Not quite. You saw it once before, Seremend. You must understand, a part of what it is, that has been exacerbated within the Construct, is that it can only be carried by other sentients. It passes between them, borrowing them for a time, before moving on. It’s clearly no longer just a machine-lect, it’s something else.
“But it’s in a Galphranx, just like you. Just like when we saw it before. If it was really passing between sentients, why is it back in the same body as before?” Tolren asked.
“Because like finds like,” Seremend said. “It’s linked to that Galphranx. They were probably drawn to each other again.”
Exactly.
“And when did I see it?” Seremend asked, her voice quietening.
I suspect you already know. It was when you first entered the Spires.
She brought a hand to her mouth. “When I was attacked?”
You were correct all along. You knew something was wrong. It wasn’t a Roranian, although it was a species that appeared very similar.