The Ascendant Stars

by Cobley, Michael

  Well, so far my presence seems to have had little effect on the surroundings, he thought. I would be quite happy to miss out on seeing my unconscious imaginings made solid …

  Mist drifted over the surface of the river and low cloud blurred the heights of the cliffs. The air was still and quiet, no insect sounds, no birds, just the murmur of the river. Behind, the immense portal paled away behind veils of mist while ahead the gorge curved to the left, the cliffs lost height and became rounder. Bushes sprouted here and there, then came reedy shallows with small trees dotted along narrow shores. Round the bend larger trees came into view, a dark coniferous forest, a dense, impenetrable barrier that cloaked steep inclines on either side. Robert could smell wet foliage, and the unmistakable odour of pine needles, and felt … a tantalising familiarity.

  Then he heard voices, male and female, and sounds of running feet, laughter. There, among the trees a young couple ran, one chasing to give a tap on the shoulder to the other, who then turned about to give chase, tripping, laughing, stumbling into each other’s arms, kissing …

  The memory was suddenly whole and alive, keen with joy and the pain of a lost and innocent perfection. After long languorous moments, the kiss ended, they broke apart and carried on upslope, off into the trees, the youthful Robert Horst and his girlfriend, Giselle, later wife and mother of Rosa …

  He sat back in the boat, his mind a whirl of emotions. The Tanenth machine had not hinted at what to expect but now he wondered what lay in store, and with a degree of apprehension.

  The change that came over the landscape then was swift, smooth, as if he were passing through some surreal holoartwork. The steep wooded slopes to his right flattened and the shoreline moved off and off, finally receding into the horizon, while to his left … the trees shrank, hills and ridges diminished, and the slopes of looming mountains lost their immensity. The boat was now moving slowly past a series of small-scale rocky fjords and coves, most with clusters of houses, villages and towns as he went on, all in perfect miniature, their inhabitants tiny yet going about their routines. Threads of smoke rose from minuscule chimneys, trawlers put in to wharfs to offload catches, and little wagons and vehicles wound along cobbled roads or up winding trails into the woods.

  And when he shifted his gaze further along the shore and saw a flatter region, a coastal plain bounded by ridges and steep hills inland and mountainous uplands to the north, and dominated by a towering promontory, he suddenly realised that he was floating past the entirety of the Darien colony in miniature. There were the streets and built-up areas of Hammergard, there beyond it lay Lake Morwen, there further north was Port Gagarin with its landing strips, and there was the island of New Kelso, while further west stretched rich farmlands, hamlets, villages and towns. But smoke rose in many places, and he saw great mobs laying siege to barricaded strongholds, or engaging in running battles through the streets of unfortunate towns. A few zeplins passed through the air above Hammergard and off to the south, while fighting seemed to be taking place up on Giant’s Shoulder. There were flashes of energy weapons, the yellow bursts of explosions, and out-of-control fires.

  Robert watched the stricken land pass by and wondered how true a representation this was. This must be how the Godhead sees the activities of us lesser beings, scurrying around, pursuing antlike purposes. Or could this be just one way of looking at us, a kind of conceptual model, perhaps even a discarded one?

  Past the northern shore, with the miniature city of Trond and its stone towers sliding out of view behind the upland slopes, cliffs began to rise again on both left and right. In front of him they joined overhead, forming the entrance to a gigantic, gloomy cavern into which the river swept. As the light from the entrance faded the murk deepened until he was engulfed in pitch blackness with only the sides of the boat to cling on to and the rocking motion to remind him that the river still carried him along.

  A foggy glow appeared before him, gradually brightening to a wide stretch of blue-grey openness, dotted here and there with strange floating crags and boulders, some with trees growing on them. Some were like bizarre plateaus wrenched from absent landscapes, their rocky roots tapering beneath while odd creatures grazed amongst angular ruins. Further on a larger structure came into view, something that looked designed or at least assembled, a complex of low buildings in radial sectors rising in a conical arrangement – Robert quickly recognised the Garden of the Machines, the headquarters of the Construct. And it was at the centre of a huge battle.

  In thousand-strong formations, combat vessels swept towards each other, energy weapons stabbing out like a forest of bright spears moments before the flying arrays met each other, cut into each other. Warships hurtled past each other, some as close as a dozen metres, others too close, their collisions sending both careening off to spread the destruction wider. Projector beams burned into hulls, forcefield shields strobed, flared and overloaded, missiles were subverted by countermeasure virals and turned on their ships of origin.

  And as before, Robert watched it all from a godlike point of view. The Garden of the Machines was a fabulously detailed miniature, while the starship formations were like tightly coordinated shoals of mechanical fish. The defenders were the Aggression, the Construct’s AI machines, and they were facing a combined force of Vor and Shyntanil craft. The former had black or purple hulls that were rounded, faintly organic in shape with bifurcated or trifurcated prows, blunt tines that emitted beams and webs of jagged energy. The latter had larger wedge-shaped hulls, angular profiles and a greater variety of weapons. As the battle unfolded it seemed that the attackers were more likely than not to employ risky gambits in mid-manoeuvre to gain an edge on the next pass.

  Robert recalled what he had heard from the rogue Shyntanil a few days ago. The Godhead had rescued their people, some from internecine skirmishing, others from obliteration at the hands of deep-level horde creatures, and still others from disease and inward-turning obsessions. Given promises of glory and domination of hyperspace, they reunited and with the Godhead’s help recovered and rebuilt many of their ships, then set about bringing many of that fading race’s ancestrals back to the pseudo-life of the Twiceborn, through the techniques of technotrophic regeneration. The Vor, on the other hand, were a species of usurper symbiotes that had been on a long horizontal journey across the overlapping tiers of hyperspace in search of new races to dominate. The Godhead’s messengers had found them and persuaded them to return and take part in a grand assault on a variety of hyperspace civilisations and powers, especially the Construct and its forces.

  Now his boat, a titanic hulk next to those tiny ships, was slowly coming up on the Garden of the Machines itself on a course that would pass close by. As it did so, Robert saw a Shyntanil cryptship appear in a quivering burst of hyperspace radiance and assume a trajectory towards the Construct’s headquarters. Wave after wave of insectlike interceptors were launched from the ducts in the flanks of that big diamond-shaped vessel. In response, clouds of tinier objects emerged from the Garden’s buildings, drones, mechs, droids, all coming out to fight the invaders. They moved out to meet them, coalescing in clusters that darted towards individual craft. It was all too small for Robert to make out the details, but there were sparks and flashes of weaponsfire, brief white flares and large yellow ones. After a minute or two it appeared that the Shyntanil interceptor attack had been stalled by the ferocity of the defending mechs. By now his viewpoint, from his own vessel, was passing the upper floors of the Garden of the Machines, with the Construct’s pinnacle towers and domes practically within reach. He gazed at the open windows, in at the white rooms, and wondered if some tiny Construct or even a Rosa-sim was in there somewhere …

  ‘Well, that was fun, seeing those creaking relics put to flight. If there’s one thing worse than an organic sentient, it’s an organic sentient that’s been brought back from the dead.’

  Robert turned to see a drone hovering about an arm’s length away. It was shaped like a pair of metre-wide fla
ttened shells separated by some kind of shielded assembly – in fact, there was a distinct clamshell appearance to it. The voice, however, was quite familiar.

  ‘Nice to see you again,’ he said. ‘I do like the new bodywork. Was it your own design?’

  ‘Sadly, Robert Horst, there was insufficient time to have my preferred configuration manufactured,’ said Reski Emantes. ‘So I had to take this off-the-shelf clunker instead. It is quite sturdy, though.’

  Robert looked round at the battle for the Garden of the Machines, now receding, and nodded. What next, I wonder?

  ‘You seem to be quite atypically relaxed about this situation,’ said the drone.

  ‘And what situation is that?’

  ‘The gross differences in scale have not escaped me,’ Reski Emantes said. ‘Logic would lead to the observation that we are not occupying a conventional reality.’

  ‘What would you say if I were to tell you that we are passing through a meta-quantal synthesis of a hyperspace tier and the fringes of the consciousness of the Godhead?’

  ‘I would say how do I test this claim?’

  Robert shrugged. ‘Good question – I can only go by what I was told by the Tanenth machine. You should ask yourself what you remember before you appeared in my boat.’

  ‘I recall taking part in the action against the Shyntanil interceptors,’ the drone said. ‘And as I was returning to my recharge niche my sensors registered anomalous gravity and inertial readings. When they returned to normal I was here in your craft. Is it your conjecture that the Garden of the Machines and the battle with the Vor and the Shyntanil is nothing but a creation of your overworked imagination? If so, I would have to reassess the mental capacities of Humans.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have to go that far,’ Robert said. ‘I think that your battle and its surroundings, and a previous one I saw depicting strife and fighting on the colony world Darien, are discarded scenario models, abandoned as some motivating force worked its way through a variety of initial conditions … ’ He smiled. ‘Or they could be complex simulacra set in motion for some other less fathomable reason.’

  ‘If your wild supposition is true,’ the drone said, ‘is it possible that the Godhead may become aware of our presence – if it isn’t already – and move against us in some way?’

  ‘For what it’s worth, I think that we are passing through a subconscious area of the Godhead’s mindscape, or maybe the periphery of its subconscious ponderings. Nothing here is connected. It all seems disjointed … ’

  The light faded suddenly, like a swift dusk. To either side river banks were again visible, uneven lines of tangled brown-green foliage beyond which loomed dense, shadowy forests.

  ‘It appears that you spoke too soon,’ said Reski Emantes. ‘This all seems quite consistent.’

  The boat was being carried steadily along by the current but just for a moment Robert thought that he felt a faint tremor pass through the gunwale where his hand lay. Then, movement on the river bank to the right, small figures dodging along the tree line, keeping pace with the boat.

  ‘I detect four humanoid lifeforms,’ the drone said. ‘No clue as to their intention. There is also another large creature in the water – it has passed close by twice so far.’

  The small pursuers on the river bank seemed to be dressed in ragged clothing and although the light was poor Robert was sure that they had pointed ears and the wrinkled faces of old men. Peering at them, he felt stirrings of familiarity, long-buried memories of the fairy tales he heard from Great-Grandmother Hirsch.

  ‘Kobolds,’ he murmured. ‘That’s what they are … ’

  On the river bank they seemed to be waving vigorously as they hurried along, so Robert waved back. Which made their gesticulations still wilder.

  ‘They seem anxious about something,’ he said.

  ‘So am I,’ said the drone. ‘That creature is back and it’s coming straight for us.’

  Robert barely had time to grab hold of the side of the boat before a swollen wave raced out of the gloom and struck them side-on. Thrown into the water, Robert fought against the cold shock as he struggled to the surface. As he came up for air he caught sight of a large serpentine form as it smashed the boat to pieces in the course of its lunge towards the drone, Reski Emantes. He then saw that the creature had a Humanlike torso, a head of long, tangled black hair, and arms ending in taloned hands. Water streamed off its green-grey hide as it shrieked and swung at the drone which was hitting back with energy bolts that seemed to have no effect.

  Suddenly the creature reared up out of the river, wrapped its arms around the drone and plunged back into the waters, taking the machine with it. Paddling towards the left bank, Robert saw the surface roil and thrash. Stunned, he splashed ashore through reedy shallows then staggered along to the spot closest to where the drone went down. Lights flickered in the depths for a few moments, then there was nothing.

  He stood in frowning thought – the drone had only been a transient creation of the meta-quantal environment so worrying over an unreal symbol was wasted effort. Then he shivered, realising that being drenched and cold might be unreal but the sensations were uncomfortably authentic. Quickly he stripped and wrung as much water out of his clothes as he could then dressed again, but still felt cold and wet. He began to walk, stopped a few paces on as understanding struck.

  Those were kobolds on the other side, which could only have come from my mind, my memories! He looked back to where shards of the boat were caught in the reeds. And the water monster was a nixie, a water spirit – these surroundings are generating monsters based on primal images from my childhood. Who knows what else I’ll meet?

  Robert peered into the gloomy forest and smiled.

  Thank you, Great-Grandmother. I hope that some of those stories were about heroes, the kind who get to survive …

  The riverside path came to a huge boulder and veered off through the trees. It grew narrow and weed-choked and started to slope gently downwards. The gloom brightened a little for a short distance before he encountered a drifting mist. The vaporous haze muffled his movements and footfalls yet he began to detect a far-off sound like a continuous, faint drumming. As he continued the noise got steadily louder until it sounded more like a heavy rumbling than drumming. Frustratingly, the mist thickened and after a few minutes he could not see more than ten feet in any direction.

  The rumbling, however, was louder and seemed to come from all around, accompanied by a deep, rhythmic creaking. Robert was reluctant to venture into the tangled undergrowth to either side so he stuck to the path and cautiously resumed walking.

  A dozen paces further on he came to a grassy cliff edge. Peering over it, he saw a long, rocky ledge a good thirty feet below, all overlooking mist-blurred trees and bushes, perhaps a river. He followed the path along the edge of the cliff, still hearing that grinding, creaking rumble, still unable to fix its direction. After a short while he noticed a glow in the mist up ahead, down in the bushy vale. As he drew closer the radiance resolved into a campfire burning between two heaps of boulders, flanked by three sleeping forms and one sitting sentry, wrapped in a cloak. All was quiet, he realised – the reverberant rumbling had faded away to nothing,

  Out of the corner of his eye he noticed movement to the right, three tall figures loping along the rocky ledge, slender bipeds with dark scaled skin and cloth-wound breechclouts. Following them were five black, waist-high dogs with scarcely any necks – their jaws seemed to emerge from between their powerful shoulders and looked lethal. Robert instinctively ducked behind the cover of bushes to observe.

  The three newcomers stealthily descended from the ledge, accompanied by their well-trained dogs, and vanished into the hazy tree shadows. From the attention they’d given the campfire, Robert knew what was about to happen and watched with a certain dread. Sure enough, dark figures emerged from the gloom behind the sentry, one to render him insensible, the other to pounce on the others and bind them while a snarling dog stood over each on
e. Robert realised that one of the bipeds was missing just as he heard the quietest scrape of a foot on the grit of the path behind him.

  Before he could rise and turn, strong, sinewy arms trapped him about neck and chest. He gasped, struggled ferociously and felt one of the arms loosen. But anticipation of escape was dashed when the attacker used his free hand to deal Robert’s head a stunning blow. Dazed, he was unable to resist as he was slung over one shoulder and carried off.

  By the time his head cleared and he could see straight, he found he was sitting near the campfire, propped against a nearby boulder with hands and ankles tied. One of the dogs sat a few feet away, watching him with unnervingly pale eyes. The four prisoners, shorter and hairier than their captors, were down on their knees and in a line, each with a dog by their side. They trembled in fear as one of the tall bipeds approached the first, a male in rough woven garments, from the side. A lanky arm was raised, the spidery fingers grasping a small blade with a shining edge. The blade fell towards the back of the captive’s head. Robert couldn’t see what was being done but some moments later the biped tugged at a hank of the prisoner’s plentiful hair, as if pushing some of it aside.

  Then the accompanying dog let its head hang forward. There was a slight tearing and the top of the dog’s head split open to reveal something grey, glistening and ridged. The greyness squirmed then crawled out of the dog and onto the long, bare arm now extended by the blade-wielding biped. Horrified, Robert had a frisson of surreal recognition – the grey thing clambering up that slender arm was a Vor, a member of the race of usurping symbiotes who were, with the Shyntanil, ascending the levels of hyperspace, attacking all who stood in their way.

  Why am I seeing this? he thought. If this really is part of the Godhead’s subconscious, then what does it mean?

  The Vor was placed on the prisoner’s shoulder by the tall biped. Robert was assailed by a wave of nausea as he realised that it wasn’t just the prisoner’s hair that had been tugged aside moments ago but a section of skull. The symbiote crawled out of sight, under the hair, and the prisoner at first gasped and looked around wildly. Then suddenly he froze, face twitching, his eyes staring into midair. Unable to look away, Robert was sickened by his knowledge that the Vor was literally eating its way through its host’s brain. Once the centres for personality and memory were consumed, the Vor would take control of its new vehicle.