by Barry Kirwan
“Now, Commander Blake, That’s not very nice.”
Blake leapt up from his seat, drawing and firing his pistol, sending a pulse charge clean through the heart of the shimmering image hovering above their nuclear cargo. Louise didn’t flinch.
Zack banked the craft hard. Blake gripped a lanyard hanging from the ceiling, but the image remained stationary relative to its surroundings. Zack made a brief transit, Blake guessed a few hundred kilometres, but the image resolutely stayed exactly where it was.
“Boys, relax, I’m just here to talk.”
But Blake recognised the hunger hiding behind Louise’s smile, one he’d seen all too often in people who’d gotten a taste for killing. He turned to Zack, the Louise hologram behind him, and mouthed the word “where?” Zack shook his head a fraction, ignoring Louise, hunting for the signal source on his screens.
“What do you want, Louise?” Blake faced her off, holstering his pistol, folding his arms.
“You won’t believe me if I tell you.” Her smile vanished.
“Try me,” he said.
“Yes!” Zack growled from behind him, and the ship lurched sideways. Blake saw Louise glance down, a lined creasing her brow. She said something he didn’t catch to someone on her left, then faced forward again. “Zack,” she shouted, “Zack, stop it now. It doesn’t have to be this way.’”
The stars outside vanished, dissolving into an out-of-focus room, with pipes and objects Blake couldn’t make out. But he knew Zack had done it – he’d traced the signal back to Louise’s ship. It was now or never. He reached over to the controls beneath Louise’s fading image.
“Not yet, boss, they’re blocking us from fully materialising. Just a few more seconds.”
Louise’s eyes, pupils sharp as needles, stabbed towards Blake’s hand hovering above the detonation switch. “You leave me no choice. Zack! Do you remember Paris?”
It was such a non-sequitur, Blake thought, and she said the last phrase in such an odd way, with unusual inflexions. It took a second to realise it must be the trigger code for the implant he’d suspected Zack having since the Eden Mission. But when Zack didn’t reply, and he saw Louise’s face relax, he knew what was coming. Just as he reached for the detonation plunger, he was yanked backwards by grapple-like hands. He tried to grab his pistol, but Zack twisted him by his legs. Zack’s ox-like strength twirled Blake like a rag doll, and his head and shoulders hit the deck hard. As soon as Zack let go of one foot, Blake lashed out with the other, but although he caught Zack solidly in the chest, a meteor-like heel crashed down on his own solar plexus, winding him completely, draining his strength away, as his nervous system went into shock. He knew it would only take one second for him to recover enough to be able to retaliate, or at least to defend. But there was no respite in the furious, deep-psyche-encoding the Alicians must have carried out on Zack back in Thailand. A single huge hand engulfed Blake’s throat, his thumb and middle finger mercilessly squeezing both carotid arteries. He stared wide-eyed up into Zack’s looming demonic face. Zack’s black eyes raged at who-knew-what insane lies had been buried there ten years earlier, powered into overdrive by a sudden hormone imbalance which gear-shifted the part of the human brain known as the ‘reptile brain’ into command. Blake’s arms and legs struggled with all his might, but he knew he was no match for Zack. His vision blurred, and he felt a sharp spike in his left carotid. Everything he saw turned blood red, then began to fade. He had no breath left, and felt the life being cut from him. Glenda! he thought, then his mind freefell into blackness.
“Munich was better,” Louise said, using the same strange inflexions.
Zack’s eyes snapped back into focus, and then the whites grew large as he flung himself off Blake. “What the hell?”
Blake lay immobile. Zack stared in horror at the growing purple bruise darkening the left side of Blake’s neck, his left eye blood red. He cautiously reached a hand over to the other carotid where he detected a thready pulse. He bent over and put his ear above Blake’s mouth. He heard a scratchy, rasping breath, like an old man’s, coming from his mentor, his friend.
“It’s over,” Louise said. “During that little event, we disabled your device, but a lot of your craft’s systems got fried in the process.”
Zack didn’t care. He squeezed his own eyes shut for a moment. The memory came back to him now: he’d been there, inside his body, staring down as he’d strangled his best friend. Still hunched over Blake, he lodged a knuckle into his mouth and bit till he tasted blood, emitting a groan that grew into a roar. The eye-searing astringent smell of ozone and burnt circuits confirmed that this was no nightmare he was going to ever wake up from. He eased off the knuckle, and took a deep breath. With one hand on Blake’s chest, he swivelled to see that most of the screens were dead, various pieces of kit sizzling and sputtering into silence. Outside there were stars again.
He stood, facing Louise’s image. “You fucking whore –”
She held up a hand. “I can do it again if you like, Zack, and leave you to tear the ship apart, and the rest of Blake.”
Zack loomed like a chained bear. “What the fuck do you want, bitch?”
“Just hear me out,” Louise said. “That is, if you want him to live.”
He barely felt the aching of his fore-finger knuckle bitten to the bone, as his blood trickled to the floor. The pain wasn’t enough, he wanted to tear at some more of his own flesh, but mostly his hands wanted to be around her neck. We both die, Louise, that’s the way it’s going to be. That’s the only endgame now. After I get Blake to the medics.
He folded his arms, his eyes burning steady as molten steel. “I’m listening.”
Chapter 11
Mannekhi
Pierre lifted his hands from the Omskrat orb, and felt the outside world engulf him, like a tsunami breaching an empty lagoon. But the real world seemed pale by comparison.
“How long this time?” he asked.
“Four bloody hours, Pierre. If you’re still Pierre.”
He stared at her for a while, then broke off as he realised he was doing so. “Sorry. It’s pretty immersive.” He had few words to describe it. It was less like he had been somewhere else, than he had been someone else – no, not someone, he thought, something else.
“So, what did you learn this time?”
Kat’s voice had her usual razor-wire edge, but it affected him less each time he came ‘out’.
“It started a billion years ago –”
“Good opener. Is this going to be long, though? I may have to wash my hair this evening.”
He knew better than to fence with Kat – he’d lose. “In another galaxy.” He sighed. He had to forewarn her. “One that’s no longer there.” He paused. She said nothing. At least he had her attention now.
“There was a fantastic civilisation, brimming with energy and life, almost every habitable world populated and thriving, species … I couldn’t begin to explain. A commercialism and tolerance which bred peace. Until…” His chest felt heavy. When he’d been in communication with the educational orb known as the Omskrat, he’d been objective, untouched emotionally. Now, however, the full weight of what he’d seen squashed him with the gravity of a gas giant.
He hadn’t noticed, but Kat was now sitting beside him, her arm around his shoulders. He looked at her, really looked at her for the first time in days.
“Hello, Pierre,” she said, “welcome back.”
“You understand what I’m going through, don’t you?”
She lay her head against the smooth white wall behind them. “You mean my node? Sort of. The immersion is similar – detached, that’s why they got banned, you know, too many psychotic episodes and meaningless homicides.” She half-laughed, then faced him square. “But when I come out, it’s still me, I’m not actually changed on the inside. With you, however…” She stood up and strolled to the other side of the small chamber and sat opposite him, hands pressing down on the cushioned seat. “Pierre, you’re
slipping away from me. And not just me either. You’re losing your humanity, and I’m not just talking about your eyes.”
He nodded. She was right. Part of him was mourning his own slow disappearance. And yet, another part…
“Come on,” she said, “you started a good story. Tell me, it helps.”
He tried to smile. “Okay. The Kalaheii –”
“Who?”
“Right, sorry. One of the ascendant races at the time, called the Kalaheii –”
“What did they look like?”
He was surprised by the question, but more so by his inability to give a straight answer. “It’s … it’s not exactly visual. Well, some of it is, but other times it’s just … knowledge, facts.” Like it’s being hardwired into me, he thought. So I don’t forget. He understood now the power of this educational tool: it was indoctrinating him.
She shrugged, waving a hand. “Whatever. Carry on.”
“The Kalaheii wanted to rule over all the other races. There was a leader amongst them, Qaroll, who led a galactic coup. Thousands of worlds were conquered.” Pierre knew the death toll had been on an unimaginable scale. He tried to recall what came after trillions. “But seven of the ancient races, led by the Kalarash –”
“Gosh, the letter ‘K’ was popular in this galaxy. Sorry, please do continue.”
He paused, taking in her features, remembering the moment he thought he would drown – only a week ago.
“Oh come on, Pierre, don’t sulk. I promise to be quiet.”
He supposed it must sound abstract. But he knew that although it was legend, mythic, that it was also at some level true. He decided to cut to the chase. “There was a horrific war, the stakes kept getting higher. Suns were used as weapons, first by making a system’s star go nova, then later as actual missiles; whole stars jumped into other systems. The scale of artillery was literally astronomical: black holes, white holes, space-time tears that could engulf armadas or planetary systems alike, dark matter weapons; even harnessing dark energy to skim off some of the outlying enemy star systems on the galactic rim, accelerating them out into the inter-galactic void. But Qaroll was losing, so he and the Kalaheii developed the ultimate weapon.” He swallowed, at least tried to.
Kat’s voice grew soft. “They developed a way to destroy a galaxy, didn’t they Pierre?”
He stared at her.
“How did they do it?”
He realised that the operation on his eyes meant he could no longer shed tears. He took a breath. “They turned off all the suns. Einstein’s equation works both ways. They found a way to invert the normal flow of the basic laws of physics, reverting energy to matter. Everything … condensed to rock.”
They sat for a while in silence.
“Seven of the ancient races escaped to this galaxy. They began fostering a new society here millions of years ago. They took their time, being ultra-careful, instilling a discipline, an order. Still, civilisations rose and fell at least a hundred times in that period. Each time the ancients, the Progenitors, would wait a while and then start again. This current society has lasted longest, however, and reached stability about a million years ago.”
“So, are our Ossyrian friends one of these ancient races?”
“Ah, no, they’re only Level Eight. The Progenitors are gone, or in hiding somewhere. Three races left to explore other galaxies, and the other two disappeared, fading into obsolescence. There’s a myth that one race became Gaia-like gods, each super-being inhabiting the consciousness of a new world, then surrendering and merging with its nature, teaching its inhabitants how to advance, or simply experiencing evolution all over again.”
“That leaves one.”
“Yes, the Kalarash. They were the last to leave, though myth has it one of them remained, hiding or in abeyance, as overseer.” He felt tired, his brain wanted to sleep, as he’d come to expect shortly after each Omskrat session.
“The Kalaheii were pretty advanced, then?”
His eye-lids were heavy. “Yes,” he managed.
“Seems odd, then.”
He found it difficult to focus. “What do you mean?”
She knelt in front of where he was sitting. He resisted an over-powering urge to lie down.
“I’m asking the question you should be asking, Pierre. This little orb is not just showing you things, it’s constraining your thinking. It’s the perfect educational instrument – what to think, but also what not to think; building walls in your mind.”
He managed to sit up straight, so he could think better. “Kat – what are you talking about?” He was angry, and not sure why.
“These Kalaheii, a master race, hell-bent on galactic domination – would they really obliterate themselves?”
“They were losing the –”
“Doesn’t matter. Losing is just a stepping stone to winning. That’s what my uncle used to say.”
His mind felt like glue. Her uncle? That seemed like another lifetime – no, another universe away. Her uncle had been some power-mad media mogul, fifth richest man on the planet at one stage, and his influence had gotten Kat onto the crew of the Ulysses, with him and Blake and Zack. With a shudder he realised they’d only landed on Eden a month ago.
She stood up. “You see, I know ego-maniacal despots up close and personal, and they don’t suffer from spite. Revenge, hell yes, and as for controlling people and dominating them completely…” She looked away. “Anyway, killing themselves so no one can take the prize is simply not their style.”
“But then … what?”
She shrugged. “You’re the genetically enhanced one. You tell me.”
Just as a thought struck him, the orb flashed a blue pulse, and a sharp pain javellined through his head. He buckled over, clutching his temples, his jagged breathing rasping in his ears. Kat’s hands touched his head, stroked his neck.
“You see, I was right. That orb is educational alright, in the classical sense. These ancients instilled order, this caste system of levels. You’re not meant to have thoughts above your station.”
Pierre fought hard to cling to the thought retreating just out of reach. The galaxy-killer – what if it hadn’t been a weapon? He heard a noise inside his head like a train getting closer, braking hard, the noise reaching a crescendo, Kat shouting his name in the distance… He blacked out.
When he awoke, Kat had her back to him. She was facing the Hohash, which was showing her something he couldn’t make out, as she was between him and the alien artefact. He tried to sit up, but his head felt like it had a jack-hammer inside it. He groaned.
“Morning, sleepy head. Hangover, darling? Out with the boys again last night?”
He still couldn’t get used to this strange mock intimacy between them. If only they’d had a few more days on the Hohash craft before the Ossyrians had found them, maybe their relationship could have got off the starting blocks. Of course, another few days and they’d have died of lack of oxygen and food.
“Had a chat with the bitch last night,” Kat said, conversationally.
He found that if he moved very slowly, the hammer poised inside his head didn’t strike. He managed to prop his head on his hand. He had no idea what Kat meant, but decided to play along.
“Find out anything useful?”
“Yep.”
Pierre didn’t know the rules of this particular game. He’d never gotten past first base before, let alone been invited to the drinks party afterwards. “Er … what, exactly?”
“I’m Level 3 pushing 4, you’re already Level 5, and your little itsy-bitsy nannite friends are wreaking havoc with the usual Chinese walls the orb erects in your brain.”
He risked sitting up, incurring a full-frontal sledgehammer. He let out a shriek.
She turned around, her sharp eyes cutting through his pain, reminding him that their brief love-making had not in fact been a fantasy.
“I’m proud of you, Pierre. It took those Alician motherfuckers – as Zack would say – eight hundred yea
rs to begin to approach Level 5, and you made it in seven days.”
He went to nod, then thought better of it; he sensed the mallet of plazsteel hanging, threatening. “How did you communicate, Kat?”
She shifted sideways so he could see the Hohash. It was displaying fields of text, pictures, resembling a large vertical computer screen. “They figured out how to configure the Hohash to interface with the orb. I don’t get programmed like you, though, so no headaches.” She frowned. “Not sure why they let me see it all without the constraints though.”
A door irised open, and an Ossyrian stepped through, the wall sealing seamlessly behind her. He was sure it was the same Ossyrian, though they had only seen a few since their arrival. She faced him and her eyes blazed information into his brain. It stung, and before he knew what was happening one of the Ossyrian’s silver hands was at his neck. It extruded into his skin. He half-expected Kat to attack or shout, but she watched placidly – she’d obviously decided either to trust them, or that any kind of resistance was futile. Pierre felt soothing rain inside his head, drizzling away the residual heat from the battle enjoined there.
“Well?” Kat said.
He jolted himself back to the surface – she was right, the Ossyrian had just downloaded a lot of information into him. “They’re going to remove my nannites. But first, they need to answer a distress call – a plague on a small planetary system in what are called the dark territories: an old war tore up space-time in this region, making transiting difficult. We’ll get to observe, see them in action, from a distance. And … well, later, they will take us to one of the Grid hubs, and present evidence of our Level 4 and 5 status to the Grid Hierarchy.”
“Nice. Will that help us? Will it help Blake and the others, assuming they’re still alive?”
He heard the plaintive tone in her voice. She was angry at everything that had happened. And why not, he thought. “I don’t know. It means we might get patronage from another race –”