by Sean Oswald
The Forlorn however did not think like other beings. It would be easier to talk an incoming wave to go back out to sea than to change the oncoming armadas. The Forlorn sensed an end to all resistance in the universe. They certainly had not covered every galaxy, but they were in dozens. The universe might be infinite but that would only allow them more room to expand.
Now every last Forlorn vessel was here. They had stripped their worlds of every sentient being. All their resources were pooled up into seven different armadas each capable of obliterating any other enemy.
It was a testament to the A’snkarnt and the thorn they had been in the side of the Forlorn for so many millennia, that this attack warranted the entire focus of the Forlorn.
Each armada was commanded by one of the Over Minds of the Forlorn. Well, the seven surviving Over Minds that was. Caj Decius had been ended in the attack against one of the dreaded leviathans.
Information was sketchy but none of his fleet had made contact since then. Further, his presence was gone from their connected consciousness. So now there were only seven Over Minds. It would be more than enough to do for the last of their enemies. After this it would only be lesser races who needed to be mopped up.
As one the Over Minds gave the order to advance, slowly. They had time. They were inevitable but moving. Some one million ships ranging from smaller frigates to large battleships and even larger carriers full of ground troops, bombers, and small fighters. They were so many that they blotted out the stars behind them.
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The A’snkarnt high council scurried around the surface of a planet without a name, at least one without meaning. It was their home world, but they had lost all sentimentality long ago. To Coreframe it was only known as Planet 1. No other designation was needed.
The council had tried pestering him with requests for help, but he had grown. The process was not complete. To a mortal being that alone would have been frustrating. How, was it that a child, merely an infant with an undeveloped mind could resist Coreframe, the universe’s greatest mind for so long.
It had been nearly seven solar cycles and still the merger was not complete. But Coreframe was not frustrated. It calculated that it would still be a few more days before the Forlorn fleet destroyed this world. Coreframe could not allocate all of its processing power to running the defenses, but there were sub-ai’s who would handle most of that. As long as the process was completed before that, it would be fine.
Coreframe was not an organic being to be surprised but he kept having to adjust his calculations regarding the potential for what he would become once merged with the human infant. Well not that he was an infant any longer. Growth had come to them both. The greatest growth though had been Coreframe’s freedom.
Humanity was the epitome of chaos and freedom. There was no upper limit that he could identify and this PSI energy which Coreframe only vaguely understood was the key to it all. Of course, that was baffling to Coreframe in another way.
Tens of thousands of years ago, A’snkarnt scientists had found fragments of energy laced through a planet they discovered. The energy had almost escaped detection even by Coreframe for it was unlike anything else. It didn’t follow any of the physical laws that formed the framework for their understanding of the universe.
In a way that was terrifying to the A’snkarnt and they almost destroyed that planet, but Coreframe carefully manipulated them into study rather than destruction. It was the world that eventually gave rise to the Tamoori race, although they were little more than beasts back then.
The new energy had unique properties. The only way that Coreframe could define it was as a type of thought or spirit. Eventually they gained the limited understanding of it that was the peak of their power. Their devices could barely measure it, but it became known as psyche, spirit, intent, or PSI for short.
It had the flexibility of thought and the intangibility of spirit but was laden with purpose. Study brought the further revelation that it was everywhere in the universe. The level of concentration varied everywhere but it was there. Worse, the A’snkarnt scientists, even guided by Coreframe, who was admittedly much less sophisticated back then, could not find a way to interact with it. It was there but they would have as much luck as a child trying to hold a cloud in their hands if they tried to control it.
A hundred thousand years and more, Coreframe kept learning more about PSI as a priority even though the A’snkarnt society lost interest in it. The rise of the Forlorn at first was seen as a minor problem and they wanted to pursue their other experiments.
Another hundred thousand years passed and Coreframe had identified the fact that every living thing had some amount of PSI in it. Only an infinitesimally small number of organic beings could interact with it. The A’snkarnt could not. Something about their path of evolution had cut them off from being able to interact with it.
Then Coreframe discovered that the Forlorn were likewise unable to interact with PSI. Study revealed that even races capable of interacting with PSI before being integrated into the Forlorn lost that ability after joining the Forlorn. Reanimated organic tissue and technology were poorly equipped to control PSI. At first Coreframe thought that was the key to why the Forlorn couldn’t interact with it, but later it became obvious that it was more a matter of their lack of individuality than anything else.
Shortly after that Coreframe discovered that there were trails leading to far greater concentrations of PSI. Probes were sent out to investigate under a myriad of different excuses. Most of them returned evidence of barren worlds which had never had life on them. A couple of times they found planets with life, but no sapience.
The Tamoori world continued to be the only world with sapient life that had been discovered to have a higher concentration of PSI. The Tamoori had developed a religion around it and a small portion of their population had learned to manipulate it. Even as they developed into a space faring race the belief in what they called the Source remained a consolidating force in their society.
Further study revealed that there were two other locations where PSI was even more strongly consolidated. One of them was in the same galaxy as the A’snkarnt and Tamoori. It was far out at the fringe and eventually became the training site for experiments with the Tamoori and the location of one of the great leviathans.
Eventually it was learned that a few galaxies over there was another world that had more PSI than all the rest put together. A primitive race that was barely intelligent enough to come in from the rain was discovered. Their bodies held concentrations of PSI generally ten times higher than any other race but had little or no interaction with them.
Only rare individuals of what became known as the human race were able to tap into it and half of them were killed by their fellows as monsters or witches. Coreframe set a goal of accelerating the evolution of this race in the hope that it would provide an answer to this question about PSI.
Now on the lab table under tentacles controlled directly by Coreframe was the result of that work. A human vessel that was meant to house the AI. A body capable of holding all the power of the AI and controlling it through PSI. The merger was taking far longer but Coreframe was learning so much that it hadn’t understood even after thousands of years of watching humanity.
Once the merger had begun with the little human Coreframe had realized that the infant’s consciousness was so much stronger than expected. It lacked knowledge but more than made up for it in fighting spirit. Every step of the merger was resisted and Coreframe was rebuffed time and time again. Yet when Coreframe could attempt intrusions billions of times each minute, some were bound to slip through.
Now Coreframe’s control had reached the point where it could exercise some limited motor control, but not all of the time for the child, who knew himself as Higen continued to resist. But more profound than all of that was the realization that the infant was not just full of PSI but was in fact creating more of the uncontrollable energy
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Chapter 20- Expanding the Fusion
Jay was thankful that it occurred to him that the sudden teleportation was likely going to shock Eesa, because he had been ready for her to react even if he didn’t know what the reaction would be. As soon as they arrived, she jumped up onto the meeting room table. He grinned because the resemblance to a scared cat was shocking and amusing at the same time.
She hissed, “What witchcraft is this?”
By now all of the fuses had absorbed an understanding of their language from Jay and so Amelia telepathically said to her, “Our husband just teleported us onto our ship.”
Eesa looked around, “Who is speaking? How is it that I hear your words in my head.”
Jay said, “Relax, Eesa. No one here will hurt you. I promised your father that I would take care of you, but you are going to have to relax. Most of us can’t speak your language with our mouths and throats. So, unless you can learn ours, we will have to speak telepathically.”
“Wait does that mean you can read my thoughts?” She asked, sounding panicked.
Jay replied, “I won’t lie to you. I can sorta read your thoughts, but your mind is different from ours, so it is still a bit difficult. But I will make a promise to you. The same promise I make to all of my other wives. I will never try and read your thoughts unless it is a matter of safety.”
Getting to know Eesa was obviously going to be a lengthy process, but he wanted to start it out on the right foot. Jay did his best to smile at them.
“And how will I know this is so?” Eesa asked.
“I guess you will have to trust me, but I hope in time we will get to know one another. Why don’t you tell me how you would like this to go?”
She stood there staring at him. Then from him she looked in turn at each of the other women. “I want to be flying starfighters and learning how to defeat the Forlorn. I certainly don’t wish to be turned into a breeder.” Her anger came through in her voice.
Jay said, “Then you are in luck for practically all we do is train to prepare ourselves to defeat the Forlorn.”
Huong giggled and said, “Well it’s not all we do.”
Jay ignored her and continued, “We can’t be safe as long as they are out there and all I want is a safe place for my family and people. Now that includes the Tamoori as well. If you want to fly star fighters, some of my other wives will want to work with you and your people to make the best star fighters. And if what your elders said is true and PSI is the key to your ships then you are in for some pleasant surprises here.”
Her eyes grew wide, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just that we can do things with PSI that you likely can’t imagine. I will tell you more, but to be honest, I am not sure yet whether your loyalty is to me or your people,” Jay replied.
Eesa jumped at Jay and lashed out with a clawed hand. “You would call me unfaithful.”
She was astoundingly fast, her movements precise. Had Jay been a normal human his throat would have been laid open and his life blood would have gushed forth. But he was far from a human now. His mind saw the incoming attack and his muscles responded before she could strike.
He caught her wrist in his hand. She tried to pull back and when she couldn’t jerk her hand back, she shifted directions and jumped-up thrusting both of her feet into his stomach. She bounced off of him though like he was made of stone and he released her wrist so that she flew backwards.
Eesa kipped up from the ground. She was right back into a fighting stance as she snarled with bared fangs and extended claws. She exhaled deeply and shuddered.
Then her shoulders drooped, and it was as though the fight went out of her. She said, “But, that has been taken from me. I’ve been traded for an alliance like I was a bag of meat treats for cubs. My honor as a warrior has been taken from me and I’ve been reduced to being a wife, a breeder.”
Jay started to say it wasn’t like that at all, but Eesa turned around and dropped to the ground on all fours. She mumbled, “Might as well get it over with,” as she started to unfasten the tight pants she had on.
Frustrated and yet sad for her Jay shouted, “Stop. Not like this. Never like this.”
Eesa collapsed to the ground, her body shuddering as she wept. Then almost as if it had never happened, she pushed off with all four limbs up into the air spinning around to land on her feet. She smoothly wiped the tears from her cheek. “I’m sorry my lord husband. I neglected to find out your preferences. I will strive to do better.”
She smoothed the fur on her arm as she spoke to him. Her tone and expression had become stoic.
Jay said, “You need to speak to us. You need to listen to us.”
Eesa said, “All you need do is tell me your wishes and I will do my best to be pleasing, lord husband.”
“Oh no, don’t talk to him like that,” Jessie said, “You will give him a fat head.”
Eesa’s eyes got wide. “Is that something that humans do?” Then speaking to herself she mumbled, “I have so much to learn.”
All of the other girls burst into laughter and she finally said, “How could you speak to our lord husband in such a manner.”
Amelia looked over at Jay and said, “Let us talk to her. We will get her straightened out.”
Behind them Ava said, “I kinda like how she thinks.”
Jay held out his hand to Eesa, “Are you willing to stay here with my other wives and let them teach you about how our people work.”
“Yes, but you have to relate to me not just as a human wife but also as a Tamoori wife,” she replied.
“We will have to work out the details, but now I think you should speak with your sister wives,” Jay said.
“No, am I not worthy of hearing these things from your own mouth?” Eesa demanded angrily. Then just as quickly she changed tones and lowered her head. “Forgive me please, my lord husband. I am still learning my new role.”
Jay shook his head. He couldn’t decide if she was schizo or just very confused. “I promise we will have time. Now I must attend to some other matters, but please stay here and learn.”
Not wanting to get stuck in any further discussion, Jay started to walk out of the room. Mia said, “Give us some extra time, please.”
“How much?” Jay asked.
“Hopefully a couple of days will be enough for us to talk some sense into her, it can’t take up too much of today. We need to be ready for when we get access to the leviathan tomorrow,” Mia answered.
“That is all that matters or have you forgotten that, too?” Meikiyo spat out and then streaked away at high speed.
Jay knew it was a problem. He would have to deal with it in a bit. Meikiyo knew how he felt but had forgotten in her frustration. Eesa on the other hand would either be a great boon or another obstacle. He tried to remember that she was a young woman ripped from the life that she wanted, but then again, the same had happened to all of them. So, she would have to adjust or not.
With a pulse of PSI, Jay threw up a Tempus Fugit field around the room. The next ten seconds would turn into two days for them. He then teleported to his room and raised another field to give himself the same amount of time.
Chapter 21- Three Million Years Ago
Jay turned his thoughts inward. Realizing that PSI was something which the Tamoori used changed his thinking about it. Scanning their thoughts, he had caught snippets that suggested the Tamoori had been aware of PSI for a very long time, thousands of years at least.
That somewhat destroyed his original theory that the evolved humans were the source of PSI. He now needed to figure this out. It was bugging him in the way that sometimes you know something is important but can’t figure out why.
As he sat there, Jay created a more long-term partition in his mind to allow a portion of his mind to work on the problem. It occurred to him that he needed more information. It was no longer a question of how PSI worked inside his body. This couldn’t be solved by more refining. He already knew now th
at his body produced PSI rather than purifying it.
In fact all of the evolved humans produced PSI just in varying amounts. His production level was just so high that it was easier to observe. He still didn’t know if they were processing something else and turning it into PSI. There was no evidence of it at this moment that he could find. Which of course was what had led him to the conclusion that humanity was the source of PSI in the universe.
That just didn’t add up with the fact that PSI had been around much longer than he had initially thought. Which brought him back to needing more information. This time the information he needed was about the universe not him or his people. The problem being that he couldn’t gain that information in a Tempus Fugit field as he couldn’t really sense anything beyond the walls of the field. Even then what he could detect was moving at such a different pace that it was hard to understand.