‘Programmed!’ Kalrea sounded agitated. ‘My belief has nothing to do with whoever programmed me. You have beliefs don’t you?’
‘Well, yes, but I choose what I want to believe in.’
‘So, do you believe in work? After all, you have to go to work in engineering every day. Did you choose to do engineering? No, you didn’t! You were trained or should I say programmed to do that role.’
‘That’s not a belief. I believe in Iop, our God. Work is a... well... a job!’
‘Well, call my belief a job then. I have a job I like doing and that is to help and protect my pilot.’
Zoren shook his head. ‘Still sounds stupid to me. I’m a complete stranger to you, yet you decided you wanted to help and protect me.’
‘Stupid it may be, but it saved your life. I believe in what I want, ok!’
‘All right… All right! Stop getting so jumpy. I’m a little surprised, that’s all. And thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For... for saving my life.’
‘My pleasure, Zoren.’
She’s been calling me by my name, Zoren thought, before saying,
‘Wait a minute! How did you know my name? I haven’t told you my name.’
‘I know everything about this Polnozoo, every creature that was on it.’
‘So, does that mean you’ve been watching me?’
‘Yes, Zoren. I had access to all the systems and monitors, so I could observe all the exhibits.’
‘You can hack into other computer systems then?’
‘Yes, but they have to be in close proximity. The systems in this galaxy are very primitive compared to where I come from, so they’re easy to break into. So what are you going to do with those Glonvi?’
‘Ah! I’ve no idea,’ Zoren said, glancing down at them. They were both still clinging to his clothes. ‘And they don’t seem to want to let go of me yet.’
‘They have some intelligence you know. They can’t talk, but they learn very quickly. Try sitting down. If you’re more relaxed, then they will understand and should let go of you.’
Zoren sat down in one of the console seats. One of the Glonvi looked up into his eyes. Zoren forced a smile.
Is it going to work? One of the Glonvi released its grip and then the other followed, allowing Zoren to move his arm away. It is! They stood up, brushed their heads against his chest and then jumped down onto the floor.
‘They just said, thank you,’ Kalrea commented.
‘Really!’ Zoren replied.
He watched them for a moment as they slowly waddled away to explore the room.
Zoren thought back to the space station and the explosion that had resulted in him being trapped.
Sabri! What happened to Sabri?
‘Kalrea, what happened on that ship, the Polnozoo…? I mean to my people. I think we were attacked and I remember seeing my wife being shot, but when I woke up there was no sign of her or anyone else’s body.’
Kalrea didn’t reply.
Is she still there? Zoren thought, getting a little frustrated.
‘Kalrea, did you hear me?’
‘Yes Zoren.’ Kalrea sounded sad. ‘I’m sorry, but everything on the Polnozoo died because of your people.’
‘What? You can’t be serious.’
‘I’m deadly serious. Do you know how valuable you are?’
‘I don’t understand. What do you mean valuable?’
‘Your race is of great value to the Xangol people. Just the payment for one of your race would be enough to rebuild the whole of the Polnozoo.’
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Zoren replied in disbelief.
‘Is it? But what if anyone of your people can be used to provide immortality to one of the Xangols?’
‘That’s impossible. No one can be immortal. We all die sometime.’
‘Yes we should, but the Xangol people discovered that if they take the life energy of an Agonian, then the recipient will become immortal, cheating death.’
The soul! They take our soul? Zoren thought and then said,
‘What… What happens to us?’
‘You die in the process.’
Zoren was totally stunned by what he was hearing and didn’t know what to say.
Kalrea continued, ‘Why do you think you were in the Polnozoo? Because you were almost extinct, that’s why. The last six of your people, who you know of as the Founders, were saved and protected by the Polnozoo. However, from what I now know, it looks like the Polnozoo council was approached by a person calling herself Lady Sathodee about six weeks ago. She offered to buy one of your people from the Polnozoo. They rejected her offer, but it looks like she couldn’t take no for an answer and employed some mercenaries to take what she wanted.’
‘So the Polnozoo was attacked, just to get one of my people?’ Zoren felt anger towards this Lady Sathodee.
‘Yes, the mercenaries disabled the main control centre knocking out the Polnozoo navigation system. Unfortunately its path took it directly into the Ukopi star. She obviously took all your people, not just the one she originally wanted, and will become very wealthy by selling them to other Xangols or dealers.’
‘So they’re not dead, they’re all still alive?’ Zoren felt relieved, even though the news was not good.
‘At the moment, yes, but for how long will be up to whoever buys them.’
‘I have to do something. My wife… I love my wife so much. I have to try to get her back.’
‘How do you intend to do that? As soon as someone recognises you’re an Agonian, then they’ll try to make money by capturing you.’
Zoren felt concerned. But that could also be true of you. I’m here on your ship. Maybe I’m your hostage, he thought, before saying,
‘How do I know that you didn’t save me to do the same, so you can make money from me?’
That’s got to be why she saved me.
Zoren rose from his seat. ‘I’m your prisoner!’
‘I can assure you that you are not my prisoner, Zoren. Please, stop being paranoid!’ Kalrea sounded agitated.
‘You may be taking me somewhere to sell me. How do I know I can trust you?’
‘You don’t, but what other option do you have?’
Zoren sat down once more.
How do I know she’s telling the truth? I have nowhere to go, no one to ask for help. I really have no choice, do I? But I still have to find Sabri.
He shook his head slowly and then said,
‘So is there any way I can find my people?’
‘There’s always a way. You just need some help,’ Kalrea replied.
‘Where am I going to find help? I don’t even have anything to bargain with; I have no currency, nothing!’
‘Look, I have nothing better to do at the moment. You would give me a purpose. I haven’t had a purpose in over one thousand, three hundred and twenty-three years. I’ll help you!’
‘No offence, Kalrea, but you’re an artificial intelligence who is integral to this ship, the Aurora. How’s that going to help me?’
‘I do have a mobile body, a drone, which I can control. It’ll take me a few minutes to initialise it and then I’ll bring it to the bridge.’
A drone! More like a mechanical monster, I bet. This I’ve got to see.
While he waited, Zoren asked,
‘How will we be able to find my people? Those mercenaries must be long gone by now.’
‘They have an eight-point-two hour start on us.’
‘Exactly, so do you know where they went?’
‘No, but they shouldn’t be too hard to find. I’ve scanned the surrounding space. Their ship’s drives are not very efficient, which means they’re leaving an ion-trail so bright we’d be able to follow them if we were two weeks behind them.’
Zoren studied the monitor. ‘But I can’t see any ion-trail.’
‘You can’t see it with the naked eye, but it’s there. I’ll show you an ion scan of the surrounding space.’
&n
bsp; The monitor image brightened, becoming almost white. Zoren could now see a bright yellow mist, which was slowly moving, as if it was caressed by a light breeze. It led clearly away into the distance.
The Aurora turned and gracefully accelerated along the path of the ion-trail.
‘The Aurora’s a lot faster than the mercenary ship, so we should catch them up in four-point-three hours, based upon the ion-trail displacement,’ Kalrea said.
Zoren studied the image on the monitor, and then commented, ‘I notice the Aurora isn’t leaving an ion-trail.’
‘That’s because it doesn’t use ion-drives. Instead, it’s powered by a pair of event horizon drives.’
Zoren looked perplexed and said, ‘Event horizon is the edge of a black hole, right? So have you just used it as a fancy name, or do you really mean that black holes have something to do with how the Aurora is propelled?’
‘It not a fancy name. Qinants have developed ways to create and control a black hole.’
‘I’m impressed. So how does it work? And please try not to bamboozle me with scientific jargon from your planet.’
‘Ok, then I’ll keep it simple. Plasma from one of three reactors onboard is directed at vast speed into the drive chamber through millions of profiled jets in its cylindrical wall. This makes the plasma spiral towards the centre of the chamber, where, due to the sheer volume of plasma, it is placed under immense pressure. This results in the creation of a small black hole within the chamber. The black hole then sucks space in through intakes in the front of the ship and expels it from the rear along with the plasma, thus propelling the ship along.’
‘But, what stops the rest of the ship and us from being sucked into the black hole?’
‘The constant feed of plasma keeps the black hole stable; however, interrupt the plasma flow and the black hole will safely collapse.’
‘So the large cones I saw in the back of the ship, when I was on the Polnozoo, were the rear of the drives? But you said it was powered by a pair of drives, I remember seeing four cones.’
‘Yes, the ship was designed to have spare systems, so there are two pairs of drives, one inner and outer, in case one set failed. I no longer use the outer pair of drives, they were converted into weapons.’
Zoren nodded and the said, ‘Those weapons could be useful when we catch up with the mercenary ship.’
‘Let’s locate it first!’ Kalrea replied, sounding dismissive of his comment.
I hope she has a plan when we find them, he thought.
Zoren was feeling very nervous about Kalrea, so he decided to try to find out more about her.
‘Kal-rea… Er… That is how you pronounce Kalrea, isn’t it?’
‘That’s close enough, Zoren,’ she replied.
‘Kalrea, I hope you don’t mind me asking you, but who created you? I mean… I assume you were created.’
Kalrea replied. ‘I’m not from this galaxy. I’m actually from one, which is billions of light years away. I was created by a race known as Qinants, who live on a planet called Qintaino. I was made conscious about one thousand, six hundred years ago.’
‘I’m only eighteen! So how old are you then?’
‘Well, if you have to put a measure on my existence, then I’m one thousand, six hundred and four years old.’
‘Wow! You must have seen many things in your lifetime. Why were you in the Polnozoo? It looks like you could have left any time you wanted.’
‘That’s true, but why would I want to leave? After all, it’s an interesting place. Where could you possibly go to see all the creatures that the Polnozoo had together in one place? Anyway, where would I go? What would I do?’
‘Don’t you feel the need to explore the galaxy? If I was you, I would have-’
Zoren stopped abruptly as the bridge door opened. He was totally amazed when out marched a tall young girl who looked no older than him.
Wow! Look at her!
‘Is that you Kalrea, I mean really you? You look… You look real! I mean, I was expecting some kind of a machine.’
Zoren got up and circled Kalrea, eying her up and down, as if he was checking out a component he had made for the shuttle. She was wearing a very tight-fitting black uniform, which had green sleeves with raised vertical ribbing.
Kalrea now spoke from the drone. ‘I modelled my body on a Qinant girl, called Londuo, who travelled in a similar ship to this. I have data patterns of her body to reference.’
‘What’s that on your head?’ Zoren said, pointing to her long brunette hair. He inspected closer to Kalrea’s eyes, before adding, ‘And above your eyes.’
Kalrea’s drone smiled. ‘That’s called hair. Sixty-eight percent of races have hair; some races even have their whole bodies covered in it.’
Strange!
‘And what about that picture on your face, do they all have those as well?’ Zoren asked, pointing to a brightly coloured tattoo of a bird-like claw on her left cheek.
‘It’s called a symoi. It’s the image of an Oilop claw,’ Kalrea replied.
‘Ah…’ Zoren replied, and thought, no idea what that is.
‘An Oilop is a kind of bird. A lot of races decorate their bodies with a variety of images, which Qinants call symois, Humans tattoos and Gullins hipils.’
Zoren ran his hand over his head feeling the raised bone that ran down the back of his head. ‘You don’t have a dolha then?’
‘No, Zoren, that’s unique to your race,’ she replied cheerfully. ‘Once you’ve seen a few different races, I think you’ll understand how varied we all are.’
I’m not sure I’m really looking forward to that, he thought and then asked,
‘How many of these drones do you have?’
‘There are five, all clones of this body-’
Zoren interrupted. ‘So you can have five of you walking around?’
‘No, only the one. I made the others at the same time. Originally there were ten of them, but five were not perfect, so those were destroyed. The remaining four are in storage and I can use them if this one is damaged.’
‘Is this drone like me? Does it have a brain? Does it have two hearts?’
Kalrea glared at him. ‘Woe! Slow down with all these questions. Every organ of a Qinant body has been replicated. The drone’s brain contains a part of my downloaded consciousness. I try to keep connected to the drone, but if required it can function on its own for short periods of time.’
‘So if it’s connected to you, then does it have your soul?’
‘My soul is here on the Aurora, inside me, but I suppose, yes, it possesses a part of my soul.’
‘Why doesn’t it just run off then?’
‘Remember it’s part of me, like one of your arms or legs. Cut one off and it would survive for a while, but if it wasn’t reattached, then it would die.’
‘That’s some comparison,’ Zoren replied feeling slightly uneasy by Kalrea’s analogy. ‘I think I’ll keep my arms and legs, thank you!’
Kalrea continued, ‘The drone does have a heart. Here, have a feel.’ She took Zoren’s hand and placed it against her chest.
‘That’s spooky. It’s beating!’
‘Of course it’s beating, what else would it do? It performs the same function as your two hearts.’
‘Do you bleed?’
I just said you! I’m forgetting it’s a drone already, but she looks so Agonian. The way she behaves, her mannerisms.
‘Yes I bleed, but not in the same way as you. The liquid pumped by my heart is used to provide power to the rest of my body. The heart contains a micro reactor.’
‘Can you feel pain?’
What am I saying? It’s a drone.
‘Yes, I can.’
Zoren was stunned. ‘I have to say I would never have imagined something like you could exist, and on top of that you look fantastic. One thing though, you appear to be a bit dusty,’ Zoren said, pointing to her head. ‘There’s a lot of dust in that…’ He waved his hand in a circular motion, tr
ying to remember what Kalrea had called it. ‘Er... hair, yes that’s it, you have dust on your hair and shoulders.’
Kalrea brushed her shoulder with her hand. A wisp of dust flicked into the air. She suddenly sneezed.
‘Ah, this drone has been stored away for forty-three years.’ Kalrea stepped over to the console and viewed her reflection in the monitor. ‘Oh yes, I see what you mean. I think I need a shower,’ she chuckled.
She’s incredible. Look at her. If she hadn’t told me she was a drone, I’d have never known.
Kalrea turned to Zoren. ‘You look like you need a shower too and some new clothes. Those look a bit dirty and torn.’
Zoren glanced down at his clothes. ‘I don’t suppose you have anything my size onboard, do you?’
Kalrea smiled. ‘Come on, I’ll show you to the accommodation area. I’m sure they’ll be something that will fit you.’
Chapter Six
A long well-lit corridor led away from the exit of the Pojin lift.
‘This way,’ Kalrea said.
Every where’s very clinical, almost feels like a medical facility, Zoren thought, as he sauntered along the corridor behind Kalrea. Erm... what’s that fragrance? It’s… very pleasant.
‘Kalrea, what... is that smell?’ he asked with some hesitation.
‘Oh, you mean the fretron. It’s a plant from the planet, Vipl 3. It gives off an aroma that relieves any tension. It’s supposed to be very good for stress. I have to say, I’m not sure it really has an effect on me.’
Zoren smiled. ‘Trust me. I feel different. Yes, definitely more relaxed.’
‘Kalrea, how did you end up on the Polnozoo?’ Zoren asked, as they walked.
‘Well it came about by chance really. I was on the second moon of Golm at the time; I had been there for fifty-four years. I was partially buried in sand and detected a science ship scanning the surface. I was going to move, but then wondered what it would be like to remain inert. I didn’t allow them to scan the interior, so they couldn’t tell I was still operational. They were very scared of me at first. It took them point-seven of one of your standard years and ten probes before they finally plucked up the courage to come down and study me.’
Aurora Saga 2 Immortality for Life Page 5