IGMS Issue 10

by IGMS

  "How comes the prototype?" Magus Veritarnus asked as she neared. He stood squinting up at his monitor, repairing the damaged DNA of some embryo before he sent it to the freezers.

  "Well," Tallori said, managing only a mildly sarcastic tone. "We are only fourteen months behind schedule. Anduval hopes to have it finished in three months."

  "A full-sized starship can be piloted even with a simple prototype. If he gets it working, we will be able to make do."

  The magus did not bother to mention that everything else was behind schedule, too. The prototype ship would be small, large enough only to carry a few hundred people.

  But it was vital to the efforts. So many of the holy maiden's sketches were . . . mysterious. Knowing what a starship's drive system was supposed to do was one thing, building it so that the nuclear-powered lifters, ion propulsion units, gamma-wave converters, and so on all worked in unison was another.

  "You know that we will not make our deadline of four years," Tallori said.

  The magus nodded. "Some of the skraals hope that it will be done in five years. Anduval imagines that if all goes right, it will take eight. Personally, I do not believe that we can get it done in twenty."

  He said it casually, in the way of one who has accepted that he will die in a vain struggle.

  Tallori asked her question. "Anduval is not like other people," she said. "He's smarter. He sleeps very little, in the way that the greatest of geniuses do."

  "Anduval is not like other people," the magus admitted.

  "The thing is," Tallori said. "I love him. But I feel that I'm too stupid for him. I . . . can't talk to him about math or physics."

  The magus had been staring up at his monitor, switching out little blocks of ATGC. Now he peered at her.

  "A man can love a woman for something other than her native intelligence. He can love her for her goodness, her kindness. I know that Anduval is fond of you."

  "But I can never be his equal," Tallori said.

  "Intellectually, no," the magus admitted. "Anduval is a special boy. Evolution does not always take place in tiny steps. Sometimes it comes in giant leaps. Anduval is the next leap."

  The magus fell silent for a moment, and Tallori stood her ground, waiting for him to explain. Reluctantly, he said, "Two million years ago, a manlike creature roamed the earth, a creature called Homo habilis. It had a small brain that could comprehend little. It could make a leaf-shaped house and use a few simple tools -- a stone knife, an awl to poke holes in furs, a needle.

  "But one day, one of the creatures evolved. The gene that told the brain how large it should be simply formed a double string, and suddenly a new specimen was born, one with twice the brain power. It was called Homo erectus.

  "It created a few more tools, better weapons, and over time its genetic superiority was confirmed. The old species died out, while only those with the new larger brains took their place.

  "Eventually, a second mutation occurred, and mankind was born -- a creature with dual brains that were connected by a bundle of nerves, so that the two halves of the brain could talk to one another. Each half of a brain was dubbed a 'lobe,' and that is where you come in. You can feel the evidence of those two brains. Often you will feel them arguing, struggling for control. When faced with a moral dilemma, one of your lobes may argue one course of action, while the others lobe demands another.

  "But always, it was suspected that evolution would take its next bound forward. As had happened time and again before, a new form of human would be born, one with doubled cranial capacity."

  Tallori could not understand everything that the magus said, but she understood that there were genetic reasons why Anduval was smarter than her. "So, Anduval has a larger brain?"

  The magus shook his head. "He has four brains, two frontal lobes, and two posterior lobes. Each pair of lobes is connected by its own corpus coliseum, its own bundle of nerves.

  "When you hear two voices arguing in your mind, Anduval hears four in his."

  The magus now turned and looked her full in the eye. "There are those who would argue, rightly I think, that true intelligence is not merely the ability to recall correctly, but to make intuitive leaps, to use the stored information to unforeseen advantage. That is Anduval's gift."

  Tallori was thinking furiously. She was wondering what that might mean for her future.

  "Anduval cannot have children with you," the magus said. "You are from common human stock, and he has been greatly modified. If you were to try to have children, they would not be viable. You would either abort the monsters naturally, or they would die soon after birth."

  The words hit her like a punch to the gut, taking the air from her lungs. But the magus said softly, "Yet he needs someone to love, and his line must be preserved. If you marry him, I can take your eggs and a few cells from his heart, and create a child, one that will express the best traits in both of you."

  Tallori looked up at the magus, and for the first time she understood the significance of his oversized head, the bumps on his temple. "Anduval is your son, isn't he?"

  The magus appeared to be at a loss for words. "Close. His full name is Anduval Nine. My birth name was Anduval Eight."

  The memory of Seramasia haunted Anduval throughout the years. At night he dreamt of her, sprawled out on her silk sheets, her womb glowing with urgency.

  At such times, he was filled with longing, and he rededicated himself to his work.

  But a thousand days after the Holy Maiden Seramasia entered her long sleep, Anduval had a special dream.

  In it, he was preparing his celestial navigation system for testing on the prototype, and he worried over the artifact, which looked like a glowing ball of crystal shot through with colored wires and bound in platinum, with engravings upon it.

  The navigation system was meant to be used by a skraal navigator. But would a skraal be talented enough to pilot the ship?

  Originally, all navigators were dragons whose minds were uniquely adapted to flight.

  Anduval had boosted the ship's long-range detection capacities in an effort to make it easier on the skraals. Beyond that, he had eliminated the need for physical manipulation of the controls. The skraal's crystal brain structure created a powerful electric field, a psycho-electric cloud that could easily interface with the control mechanisms without need for physical contact.

  All that he needed to do was tune the interface to the proper frequency so that it did not damage the delicate neurons and axons in the skraal's brain.

  A holographic display would appear in the pilot's mind showing space ahead for the pilot, revealing obstacles that could include anything from clouds of dust or plasma to small planetoids.

  As the ship neared such obstacles, lasers would pulverize smaller debris, and the ion shields would route the particles into the fusion drives for use as fuel.

  But the pilot would have to weave a path through the larger obstacles. At slow speeds, that would not be hard.

  Yet he worried still. A skraal would be able to pilot the ship, but would the pilot be talented enough to outrun a cycor vessel?

  Anduval had no way to know. His limited information on cycor vessels was six thousand years out of date.

  So in his dream that night, he was pondering how to speed up the system when the Holy Maiden Seramasia suddenly appeared at his side.

  She was a holy maiden no more. In the dream, she was filled with glorious light. Gone was the fat and fragile flesh. Now she was all hard lines, her skin turned to blue crystal, and the brilliance radiated from her abdomen, her thorax, even her head.

  Tiny baby skraals were crawling on her back, like large scorpions made of glass. Even as he watched, the newly hatched were exiting her womb.

  Anduval hardly dared look at her, for it hurt his eyes so. A feeling of rapture overhwelmed him as the holy mother addressed him, her thoughts a storm that beat upon him, her love a gale that blew through him.

  "It is beautiful," Seramasia said of his navigation sy
stem. "Have no fear, my friend. It will work, and it will save us all."

  "Do you know this," Anduval begged, "or is it merely a hope?" He was no longer sure if he dreamt or if Seramasia had indeed transcended and now communed with him through a mind-touch.

  "I see the future, frail one. I see all things. I see your love for me, and it is not nearly as great as my love for you." Her voice trailed off, she glanced to the side and down, and the Holy Mother Seramasia suddenly disappeared.

  Anduval woke in his room. It had not been an hour since he had gone to sleep. His eyes still felt gritty, and were probably bloodshot.

  Every bone in his body ached from fatigue.

  For years he had been afraid of failure, but the dream had comforted him. Yet he worried that it was false comfort.

  Was it a dream, he wondered, or did Seramasia really appear to me?

  It was possible for a powerful holy mother to send dreams to her subjects, to communicate from a thousand miles away.

  He raced down from his bedchambers, past the crèches in the human quarters, and took the grand corridor to the royal chambers. He entered through the old dining hall and reached the closed door to the meditation chambers.

  There, a trio of skraal courtiers stood guarding the chrysalis. Twisted ropes of bone, yellowing with age, still bound the holy maiden. The chrysalis only vaguely hinted at the shape of the woman sleeping within.

  The skraals leapt to readiness.

  "Halt" one warned. All three bore disruptor rods -- pale white rods that emitted a killing jolt.

  Anduval stood for a moment panting, staring at the egg-shaped chrysalis in disbelief. He'd expected to see it cracked open, the new Holy Queen standing resplendent and glorious.

  But it had only been a dream, and now he felt the fool.

  "Any movement?" Anduval begged. It was not uncommon for the queen to grow restless inside her chrysalis, to stir for months before it opened, even to cry out to her courtesans and speak briefly.

  "She sleeps deeply," a courtesan answered, "and moves not at all."

  Of course it was just a dream, Anduval thought.

  It was too early for her to emerge from her chrysalis. She would still be deep asleep, comatose.

  Even when she does awaken, he thought, Seramasia will not be a vessel of light. She will not be glorious and powerful. She will come out of her chrysalis with a hardened skin, nothing more.

  Two days later, an emergency meeting was called in Magus Veritarnus's laboratory. The skraal lords in charge of palace security were there, along with dozens of guards. Tallori stood at Anduval's side.

  "The cycor are coming," the magus said. He flipped on the screen of his workstation, which took up one vast wall. It showed an area of space, a bright star like a glowing world, with tens of thousands of lesser stars beyond.

  Static played, and suddenly there was a loud squeal that seemed to emit from the star.

  "That squeal is a signal burst," the magus said. "A cycor warship sent a message to its command center. They are coming to Danai."

  One of the city guards asked, "How long will it take to get here? It looks as if they are far away."

  "The drone scout that discovered our world relayed our whereabouts," Anduval explained. "It sent a message burst, similar to the one that you heard. That message traveled at light speed to the star that you see. The warship received the message, and then sent out a report of its own before moving out. That ship will be racing toward us now, at near the speed of light. It will take only a day or two to reach maximum speed."

  "So you're saying that we have four years?" one of the city guards asked hopefully.

  "I'm saying," Anduval corrected, "that the cycor learned of our position two years ago, and set out immediately. Depending upon their speed of acceleration, they will attack shortly -- within days"

  Suddenly, up on the screen, there was a distortion in the star field. A dark blur erupted, as if a planet had formed, and immediately it began to enlarge.

  A cycor ship was racing toward them.

  "Well," the magus said, "here they come."

  Tallori thought frantically. It would take years still to build a worldship. Most of the components for the prototype had been completed, but the hull was a thousand miles away, being towed across the ocean by sailing ships, while the drive system was scattered over the southern half of the continent. It would take weeks to gather the parts, assemble the prototype. And even when it was completed, it would only be able to carry the elite of the planet, three or four hundred people.

  But we'll never finish it, she realized.

  Heart pounding, she looked to Anduval, and realized that everyone was staring at him, as if searching for an answer. But Anduval had none.

  "We must hide," Magus Veritarnus said. "Tell the people everywhere to seek out their assigned shelter -- deep in caves or bunkers, wherever they can! They will need food to last a year, at least."

  Anduval studied the approaching doom and then turned and strode away. Tallori followed him back to his personal quarters, her mind racing.

  The palace was about to become a madhouse. The simple farmers at the edge of Shadowfest would rush here for safety, hoping to gain entrance. The smarter ones would bring animals and food to eat, whatever they could carry.

  But the palace wouldn't be able to hold them all. It might be able to protect a few thousand, but it couldn't hold the hundreds of thousands who would come.

  The skraals would be forced to drop the shield walls, block all entrances.

  Tallori's heart pounded, and she imagined that it sounded like the drumming of closed fists upon the shield wall doors. She imagined her mother and father, trying to break into the palace, crying out for help.

  She found Anduval kneeling on the floor in his Spartan quarters, staring at the wall. There were storage containers built into the wall for his personal effects, a toilet, a sink, and a bed low to the floor. Nothing else. The baths and commissary were down the hall.

  She knelt beside him. "What can we do?"

  He shook his head slowly, staring at the wall as if at some private horror. "Nothing," he said. "We can hide, but the gravity field emitted by that ship is too large. If they even draw close, they could siphon off our atmosphere or rip the crust of the planet apart. They won't even need to use weapons."

  "Can we fight them?" Tallori asked.

  Anduval shook his head no.

  He turned, and there was infinite pain in his eyes. "I've failed you, Tallori."

  A shock of fear pierced her, more powerful than anything she'd ever felt. The skin on her forehead tightened, and the hair rose on the back of her neck.

  "I love you, Anduval," Tallori said.

  He nodded slightly, as if to say that he knew.

  "Will you kiss me?" she asked in a small voice.

  Tallori was only twelve and a half, far too young to marry. But she had been in love with him for nearly four years, and she did not want to die without having felt the touch of his lips against hers.

  If I'm going to die, she thought, I want to die in his embrace.

  Hesitantly Anduval reached out, stroked her face.

  He was not the kind to lie to her. If he kissed her, she knew, it would be an admission of what he felt.

  He leaned close. Their lips met, and she wrapped her fingers in his long hair. She leaned into him, so that she felt his heart thrilling, and just enjoyed the taste of his lips.

  Anduval pulled back and said, "You deserve better than I can give you. You deserve a full lifetime of love"

  Tallori shook her head no. "This will have to be enough," she whispered, when the door to his room burst open.

  The consort Cessari stood in the doorway, a disruptor in his hand. "You have failed," he said coldly. "You shall be the first to die."

  With superhuman speed he attacked, aiming the disruptor rod. Anduval shoved Tallori aside, out of harm's way.

  A burst of electricity arced across the room, a bolt of violet lightning. It s
truck Anduval's silver headband. Sparks flew; Tallori smelled a rush of ozone.

  Cessari let out a trumpeting call, a skraal cry of pain, and plummeted to the floor.

  The skraal lay convulsing.

  Tallori gaped at Anduval in wonder.

  He stepped closer to Cessari, and the skraal's muscles all clenched simultaneously. His mouth flew open, his oral-dactyls spasming, and his eyes grew wide. His head turned up and to the side, while his legs and arms curled in. He gasped, struggling with every fiber of his body to breathe.

  "I told you that I would protect myself," Anduval said. He removed the silver headband, pulled free the platinum leads that hooked into his nerves, and threw the device down upon the skraal.

  Cessari went completely rigid and quit moving, a gray-green effluvia exuded from his anus.

  He stopped breathing, stopped moving.

  Tallori was confused. She stood for an instant, staring down at the skraal. "What . . . what did you do?"

  "I built a skraal brain-wave interface into my headband," Anduval admitted. "It had no power source, but it was designed to accept the electrical impulse given off by a disruptor. When Cessari shot me, the electric charge overpowered the interface, which shattered his brain."

  Tallori stared down. The skraal consort was dead, his life fleeing as smoothly as a candle going out.

  "He could have hit you," Tallori said. "How did you know he would use a disruptor? All he had to do was crush you like a bug."

  "He brought a disruptor when he threatened me earlier," Anduval said reasonably.

  He stood for a long moment, peering down at Cessari.

  The skraals would be angry. Tallori had never heard of a human killing a skraal. They were faster, stronger, smarter than humans. They were biologically superior.

  Anduval had only acted in self-defense.

  She wondered what his punishment might be.

  Suddenly the floor began to rumble, and in the halls, a warning horn sounded. Tallori looked around, wondering if there was an earthquake, or if this signaled the beginning of an attack.