by Clara Woods
“Do you know its name yet?” Lenah asked Uz, who shook her head.
“Wow, this is incredible. What is this amazing piece of ancient wisdom and ingenuity?” Lorka exclaimed as he stepped into the room behind Lenah. “What are you called?”
The drone regarded him for a long moment. Did his stony brows narrow a bit?
“I am called Zyrakath, 79th of my name, in the tradition of Zyrakath the First, known as the Great One.”
“Er.” Lorka gave a small bow. “I am Lorka Enggaard, second of my name, in the tradition of my grandfather who was known to have a ravenous appetite.”
The drone nodded. “Sustenance is very important. At least for those still in their biological form. I bow to your mindful ancestor, youngling.”
Lenah realized that she had been staring open-mouthed and hurried to close it. She eased back, wanting to let this conversation unfold.
“I have been taken against my will,” the drone, Zyrakath, stated. “I can feel your force, young Lorka, and I will rely on your cooperation to help me in my quest of protecting my temple.”
“Oh,” Lorka replied, looking at Lenah and Uz with a questioning look, his eyebrows raised and eyes wide. Or was that panic? “I’m not sure I can help you.”
The drone nodded. “Have they taken you too? Are you here against your will?”
“I…No, I’m not. These are my friends. Lenah and Uzara.” Lorka gestured toward them.
“What is this disrespect? I haven’t offered them my name.”
“Oh, please forgive me, Old Zyrakath. But we do not know your traditions,” Lorka said.
The drone regarded him, lips pressed in a thin line. “You speak wisely. I am considering this possibility. They might not have meant the offense they committed. I find almost all the relevant words of respect missing from this language. Is it possible the worlds forgot how to address their elders?”
He didn’t seem to expect an answer and continued muttering to himself but too low for Lenah to understand. She looked over at Uz, who shrugged her shoulders.
“I have decided,” Zyrakath announced. “I will be lenient and speak to you, Lenah and Uzara.”
They nodded.
“Now tell me, younglings. Why did you take me by force from my home?”
“We were hoping for your help in the fight against the Cava Dara. We’re sorry if that was against your will,” Lenah said, thinking how she hadn’t even considered this thing had a will when they’d first encountered it—him—on Masis III. Humans made androids too, but most were purposefully built not to appear too human. This drone seemed to think he was a full-fledged person with an ancient family tree and all. Or was that just the name of his production line?
“The Cava Dara. Yes, I remember. It was a very long time ago, but I recall every detail. They killed all of my kin. In the end even my beloved great-great-granddaughter. She had to commit suicide into a stone before they got to her.”
“Is she the Syrr princess from the warning the stone unlocked?” Uz asked, biting her lip.
“Hm?” Zyrakath looked down at her. “Yes, Cassidian Uzara.” He nodded. “That was all she was able to save of herself. All of it in order to leave a message to the future. Hm,” he said, his brows furrowing further. “She was wise. I suppose helping you would be what she had in mind. No matter how strange and primitive a species you are. Humans, you are called?” He looked questioningly at Lenah.
“Yes,” she said, too stunned to have any other reaction. Had he just called all of humanity primitive?
“Yes, she would have wanted this.” Zyrakath nodded. “Very well, I will assist you but I ask that I be returned to my home once I have shared all my knowledge with you.”
“Back to Masis III?” Lenah asked. “I guess we could do that. Elder Zyrakath,” she added after a short break, giving a little bow. Now that he was talking to them, she wanted to stay on his good side. “But you will help us before that? The Cava Dara are on their way to my home planet, and even though we alerted our leaders, they do not see the threat and will not mobilize in force. We’re on our way to help out.”
“The ways of the worlds remain. That does sound like what my people went through,” Zyrakath said and regarded her.
“Yes,” Lenah whispered, “and your people didn’t make it, did they?”
He didn’t answer at first but finally said, “I alone was left, but my grief diminished with the passing of time. I wouldn’t want this for any other race, not even one with your deficiencies, human.”
“What happened to your people, Zyrakath?” Lorka asked, staring wide-eyed at the drone.
Zyrakath focused back on him and flew down from where he’d been hovering above them, over the table.
He took a deep breath, or at least the equivalent of what sounded like one. Machines didn’t need to breathe, did they?
“It all started as a gradual loss of tradition. It slipped away from my people and was replaced by what this language calls greed. At least that’s part of its meaning. There’s no true equivalent. The old rules for respect and authority of the Elder were slowly undermined. There is a word for that in this language: Power.”
He paused, hovering down even more to stop at face level. His gray eyes bore into each of them.
“My great-grandson, our ruler, found a way to extract and hoard the intellect of others as part of himself. He sought and hunted the smartest Syrr, capturing their essence and transferring it into him.” As Zyrakath spoke, Lenah saw the video they had recorded on Masis III play in front of her mind’s eye. So that was what the king had done on that chair. He’d fed the intellect of the stones into himself. And the stones were minds of dead Syrr.
“He used magic to enhance himself. That was the trigger,” she blurted out loud. “But was he the only person to do this?”
Zyrakath didn’t seem happy about the interruption. He pressed his lips together but answered her. “He was alone, but he consumed hundreds. The most intense minds; all of our future. I was only spared because, for years, I managed to hide from him and his soldiers.”
Lenah looked at him in confusion. The king used artificial intelligence to enhance himself? But she was worried Zyrakath would stop talking if she interrupted him again, so she let it go for now.
“This went on for years. The corruption of our ways was slow. Apart from the latent terror of being taken, we lived in peace; we were prospering. Harnessing his immense new abilities, the king developed revolutionary farming techniques. He bent climate, the volcanoes, our crops to his will. It came easily to him, and he felt like a god. He fed us well. He protected us from our world’s own dangers. He perfected the temple home I had built to withstand an eternity of earthquakes. Only being born with a desirable mind was dangerous.
“But these new ways had to have a downside. And it came in the form of the Cava Dara. The Cassidian High Priest warned us. But it didn’t alarm our king. He had become arrogant, feeling like he could outsmart anyone. But there is no outsmarting an army of soulless creatures with the sole purpose of destroying anything in their wake. The adversary played with brute strength, not intellect, which was our only strength. Our little army was quickly diminished, joining the ranks of the Muha Dara.”
“Wait, aren’t they called Cava Dara?” Lenah asked.
Zyrakath turned to her, but this time, instead of looking annoyed at being interrupted, she saw a deep sadness in his eyes. “Cava Dara are the original creatures. Cassandral’s creations. The converted are called Muha Dara.”
“Mindless Frost,” Uz muttered, and Zyrakath nodded.
“And no one survived?” Lorka whispered.
“Only me. I didn’t have a biological body any longer, and that made me immune to the Cava Dara, and the king had already consumed all the other Elders. In the end, there was no one left but my great-great-granddaughter and me. And she took her life to infuse part of her essence into a stone.”
“Wait a moment, does that mean you once were a real person?” Lenah
hadn’t considered that before, even though he did have quite a personality for a machine. What exactly was he?
“What do you mean?” Zyrakath looked at her, confusion all over his stony features. “Of course, I am a real person.”
He turned to Lorka. “The young human doesn’t seem an adequate leader. You should consider taking up the post yourself or letting me. Though I am not sure how this box we are in, works exactly.”
“Box? You mean the Star Rambler? It’s a spaceship,” Lenah said, reigning in her amusement. The Syrr seemed an advanced culture, but Zyrakath didn’t appear to understand the concept of space travel very well.
“Yes, the space box.”
“Zyrakath, I don’t understand either,” Lorka said, probably trying to change the subject about who should be the leader. “You say you’re a real person. Do you have memories of your life?”
Good question, Lenah thought. It was possible memories of his lifetime were saved somewhere in this hard-wired brain. Even if he remembered his life before being a drone, it didn’t mean it had truly happened.
“Of course, I do. I might have been old already when my people were wiped out, but I remember everything. From the time before I entered this body to the past millennia which I spent studying the books in the temple’s library over and over again.”
“You entered this body? What does that mean?” Lenah asked, once again intrigued.
“Young female, your questions are insufferable. Have you never met one of your Elders?”
Lenah, trying to be diplomatic, said. “Please forgive me if my questions appear impertinent to you. I assure you, no disrespect is meant. I’ve met elderly people. My grandparents on my father’s side passed a few years ago, but I grew up visiting them every harvest celebration.”
“But they were not chosen to become an Elder?” As small as he was, no more than the size of a two-year-old toddler, Zyrakath managed to convey a condescending look down his aristocratic nose.
“Chosen? You don’t choose to age. Everyone just ages. Or isn’t that how it works for the Syrr?”
“We age. But only the most intelligent individuals are chosen to pass their soul into an after-body.” He flared his nostrils. “There is no adequate word in this language of yours.”
“Zyrakath, are you saying you are the soul of a real Syrr who was stored inside a stone machine?” Lorka asked, clapping his hands. “Wicked! You’re a living person from six thousand years ago!”
“I am not familiar with the time unit you are referring to.”
“Oh sure.” Lorka nodded eagerly. “A year is 350 Cassidian days, the day is split into our wake and rest cycle, and six thousand years is the time passed since the Cava Dara attacked your people. Though, if you ask me, with most planets having different rhythms from Cassidia, hanging on to the same time unit doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But the soul of someone from six thousand years ago?” Lorka looked at the drone in awe. “That is the most amazing thing I have ever heard in my life.”
“I understand you mean to speak a compliment, youngling, and at the same time I realize you could not have seen many things in your short life span.”
Lenah suppressed a snort at the arrogant comment this time. It seemed one of the most natural parts of his personality. Or maybe that was considered normal for the Syrr. An unknown and apparently highly developed culture from millennia ago.
“Humans don’t worship their Elders and better their society in the same way? Keeping the knowledge an Elder has acquired is an integral part of creating a functioning society,” Zyrakath said.
“I’m sure if we knew how, we’d do it,” Lorka remarked.
“I’m not convinced that we should,” Lenah said under her breath. Wouldn’t humanity just keep alive whoever had the most money? She wasn’t sure she liked that general idea.
“I had not considered that possibility,” Zyrakath said, sounding thoughtful. “I am reaching the conclusion that you are an even less developed race than you seemed at first glance. I shall look forward to learning more about you and coaching you in the right ways.” He nodded to himself, and Lenah caught Uz’s gaze. It was alternating from amusement to slight annoyance. Lenah had to agree. When they had taken the drone on Masis III, she had hoped it would be a helpful tool in gaining knowledge about the Cava Dara. She hadn’t expected to be lectured on her behavior.
“I wonder,” Zyrakath said, looking more serious than ever, “if I could see my great-great-granddaughter. What is left of her, at least?”
“You mean the stone?” Uz asked softly. Her face had turned serious.
“Of course. The fragment she stored there; I haven’t seen her in almost 1500 of your years. Not since the first of your kind came to take her from me.”
“The expedition that made it to the temple,” Lenah said. “How did they not take you either?”
“I hid in the library. But I didn’t have the time to fetch her in her chamber. They took her and left me behind. I was alone for a very long time until those brutes arrived, blowing a hole into my temple wall. Such immature and underdeveloped behavior, relying on pure strength.” He huffed.
“Well, at least we have that in common,” Lenah said. “We don’t like those brutes either.”
Zyrakath looked at her as if she were dirt spattered all over his floor.
“I’ll fetch your great-great-granddaughter for you,” she said and bolted from the room before he could tell her that he had nothing in common with a lowly human like her.
16 Mind Training
Lenah took a couple of deep breaths and looked at the full crew lined up in the cargo hold in front of her.
She took another deep breath and started concentrating on their minds. Over the years, she had found that breathing helped calm her down, which made it easier to see a mind with her inner eye. Though seeing was a strong word, it was more a perceiving of minds as a cloud. If she kept concentrating on it, that cloud looked as real as an actual cloud in the sky to her.
She took another breath. More minds to influence, more breaths to ground herself.
Cassius, Doctor Lund, Uz, and Persia stood lined up in the cargo hold. All were looking at Lenah, except for Uz, who had her eyes closed. Doctor Lund was also grimacing and stroking his throat where he’d always worn his order’s amulet before the stone creatures on Masis III had ripped it off him. He’d been the one least happy about submitting to this plan. Losing control of his conscious mind went against everything he believed in, he had stated, and he had stormed out of the common room as the others pressured him to join. Everyone needed to do their share in preparation for the plan, they had argued. Doctor Lund only agreed after Uz had talked to him in his cabin. Lenah wasn’t sure what the Cassidian had done to convince the doctor, but she was glad. She definitely needed every ounce of this training, and so far, their daily sessions hadn’t been very successful.
Gently, Lenah pushed an idea toward all of them. It spread out, but she needed to make it large enough to mingle with each of their minds. Only it hadn’t really worked in the last few days. She could now cover two of them at once, but all four…Lenah wasn’t sure that was even possible.
It entailed more than making her own cloud spread. She had to think of each mind consciously, otherwise, her suggestion would only pass through them without doing anything.
Doctor Lund and Uz, who were standing in the middle, started to bend down first, reaching for their shoes. Cassius’s mouth twitched with amusement, giving Lenah a hint that her suggestion wasn’t working for him yet. Lenah concentrated on him. And promptly lost her touch on Uz.
Damn it.
She wiped her sweaty forehead. Mind magic, especially challenging applications like this, took as much out of her as a fight training with Cassius.
Her cloud spread around Uz, who was getting up again. Uz stopped in mid-motion, hesitating and neither bending down again nor fully getting up. Lenah pushed harder, trying to keep Cassius and Lund in focus as well.
Uz
bent down and mimicked Doctor Lund, who was in the process of taking off his shoes. One quick glance at Cassius revealed that he was doing the same. Lenah tried to take a controlled portion of her concentration away from them and focus it toward Persia, who was still standing and grinning widely, seeing how the others were behaving.
Her knowing what was going on would make it harder for Lenah to convince her that she needed to take off her sandals, too. Past the cargo hold, only slippers were allowed—rule of the host, aka Lenah.
She had chosen this idea, as silly as it was, for its relative complexity. They didn’t have slippers to put on. Nor was Lenah the host here. She didn’t think anyone would ever ask people boarding their spaceships to take off their shoes. Though you never knew. In the end, it didn’t seem too farfetched from convincing someone to hand over their explosives.
As she poured more energy toward Persia, Lenah struggled not to let Cassius, who was standing on the opposite side of their line, slip from her grasp. He was fumbling with the laces of his combat boots, and to her relief, kept doing so.
Persia’s expression, meanwhile, changed from amusement to confusion. Lenah pushed some more and was rewarded with her bending down and untying her gladiator sandals.
The next stop they arrive to, they really ought to do some shopping for themselves. Or fetch clothes in Lenah’s room if they returned to Callo mansion. Lenah herself had left her own clothes behind on UPL station and had been wearing the formal red vest and tight suit ever since. At least she still had her shoes. Unlike all her friends, she thought smugly, looking at their bare feet.
Slowly, to not break concentration, Lenah bent down and picked up their shoes one after the other. They stood watching, but no one objected. It seemed to be actually working. Finally.