by Florian Nagy
Chapter 12
A faint, blue light appeared to shine. At first it took the form of a thin sliver of energy that seemed to glow just beyond detectable brightness. It slowly but steadily gained vigor to become a well defined albeit dim haze. The light grew brighter and brighter until its existence could no longer be disputed. The light began to gain definition; oddly defined lines and pathways seemed to form within its surface. Shapes intersected each other at artificial angles. The energy grew more and more vivid, and the arrays of light became clear and enduring. The two pools of blue form solidified and remained stable in their crystalline shapes. Their patterns were set, and they stood ready.
The eyes of the android peered forward with newfound life. His ancient circuits breathed with power once more. The enormous quantity of data stored in his memory resurfaced into his consciousness. The millions of memories of which he was once again aware erupted back into his mind: the throng of moving machines, the bright shattering light, and the smooth surfaces reassembled and built themselves back.
The commander asked the group working on the power relays about their status. The team had managed to replicate the energy patterns that had once fed the circuits of the android. They had rerouted starship fuel to a makeshift generator to provide the power they would need. They had opened the relic and fed the stream directly into the flux of components and transmissions, into a section that had seemed relatively isolated. It had taken several minutes for the all the decrepit systems to be sufficiently fueled by the power source, but slowly he had come to life and he continued to be supplied by the stream.
The team reported their apparent success to the commander.
“Very well done,” was the response.
They quickly explained to him the adjustments they had made to the system they had set up. He listened, and then the whole group turned their eyes towards the android. It was unaware of what had just transpired, but felt contact from the outside. The Skyrrnians had assembled an interface with the machine. They were directly linked into the android’s artificial mind.
The android could now sense the foreign presence probing its memory, which swept through its interior at an immense speed, picking up, observing, and analyzing all it found; taking all it could get its ravenous probes on.
The android’s internal security system had been dormant so long that it took a long while for it to realize the threat. There had been no foreign contact for so long. It had seen no trace of anything unaccounted for in the physical world, let alone in its mind, since its fabrication. The presence was marked as the invader it was, and the Skyrrnian technicians lost control over their probes in the android’s system.
The program that was reading and collecting all it could in the android’s mind suddenly stopped its feed. The people keeping track of and storing all the information took in anxious breaths. The communication link became entirely devoid of substance, and the power connection between the machine and the station, both in and out, ceased. Their worried glances and hushed tones aggravated the brusque failure that had swept over them. The commander took a step back and peered at the android. Its head began to move. It looked over the group of men huddled to its side. It observed their heavy forms, their gray skin, their established communication station, and the air with which they had implanted themselves there, especially the one who stood slightly off behind them.
“Firstman Khrrn, we have lost all contact with the robot,” one man from the group tentatively reported to the commander in his native tongue, slightly mispronouncing the last word.
“What has gone wrong?”
“We do not know, sir, the robot has been able to completely isolate us from its inside. It is as if the machine were inactive and dormant, yet as we can see… can see quite clearly… it is active in front of us,” the engineer responded, losing his fluency at the end.
“Well, burn inside the damn thing!” the commander shot back with a defiant yet not angry tone. He stepped towards the half-destroyed relic menacingly as if he could squeeze the knowledge out of its casing. The engineers stood uncertain of how to interpret the commander’s order, when suddenly their readings started once more.
The android’s stout eyes now followed the commander most steadily. The game had shifted, and now it was the one observing them. Small quantities of data heralding the machine’s life came through to the crew, who exclaimed with joy and quickly beckoned to the commander to come join them.
He took quick strides and returned to the group’s side. He proceeded to peer into the screen processing the data. It seemed to be just cosmic noise. There was nothing intelligible in the whole mess.
The android connected with the Skyrrnian interface and began to read it carefully. Slowly the men saw signs of definition begin to slip into the chaos. The data began to fluctuate and take form. Although what they read did not form anything intelligible, the information they received began to match their computer’s comprehension frame. What they could see were still illogical scraps of data, but they were in a format that matched the computer. They were no longer reading gray background noise, but distinct letters, numbers, shapes, and lights. The group of people stood huddled in rapt attention as they waited for the data to clarify further.
The android had made contact with the Skyrrnian computer. It had used its vastly superior computational force to map out the entire system and absorb it into itself. It analyzed every nook of its fabric and familiarized itself with its workings. It formulated the Skyrrnian computer’s language into a form it could use. It understood how it worked, how the oddly made and inefficient, almost crude, network functioned. It analyzed the tribal form of communication and steadily adapted its own forms to that level. Quickly, it tuned its outgoing communication stream to fit that of the Skyrrnian system. Its messages were cut and fitted to be made readable for its visitors. The android held fast to the link and attempted to connect to the foreign presence.
The android was still being powered by the energy being diverted by the Skyrrnians. It sent out a message that was both an emotional pattern that could be picked up by an intelligence that could read it, and a simple data stream. The Skyrrnian computer decoded the data stream and letters formed in the Skyrrnian script on their screen.
-Who are you. Why have you woken me. Where are the Kher’Somaaw.-
The commander stood a moment, taken by surprise. The Skyrrnian engineers quickly spoke to each other and then turned to the commander, “Firstman Khrrn, it would be best to share all we can with the robot. We need to learn as much as we can from him.”
“And are you assured that if we share our knowledge with him, he will share his with us?” the commander abruptly yet irresolutely responded. He quickly moved to the front of the crowd and stood in front of the computer console. “Let’s introduce ourselves,” he said to the group as his hands began to enter the information into the computer.
-We are of the Skyrrnian race. We have come on an initiative of exploration. We have discovered countless wreckages and remnants of an advanced habitation on this planet. We want to know more about the civilization that was once here. Can you tell us who you are? Who are the Kher’Somaaw? -
The commander thought to himself whether or not it had made a difference that he had used “who” instead of “what” when addressing the android. Any robot he knew of would not be affected by the difference in title, but the android seemed to have a spark of self-aware intelligence, and he did not want to risk disturbing any patriotic or personal “emotions” it entertained. The entire group began a discussion on what they thought they could share with the android.
What aspects of the truth would they want to reveal? In order to entice the robot to cooperate, they could convince it that the Skyrrnians were in control of a large galactic empire, spanning from core to rim. They could assure it that its lack of compliance would only delay their research and progress, but in no way thwart it. They might appeal to an entrepreneur’s sense in the robot. They could
say that they were ready to rebuild the relics from the rubble they were trapped in, and to make known the existence of the place.
The small group debated for a minute until the robot’s message arrived. It had come with a significant delay, taking into account the processing speed of a machine.
-There is no recollection of the Skyrrnian people. I am an Industrial Cooperative android. It is you who must tell me what has happened here.-
A wave of surprise moved through the people assembled there. They had no way of deducing the state of the planet, or what its previous inhabitants had been. They agreed they had to get all they could from the android.
-We are as surprised as you are. Can you tell us the things you knew about this place?-
The android’s processor ran quickly. What had transpired? What had happened to all the buildings, the glamour, the myriads of lights? He felt a tinge of what can only be described as recollection with remorse. He concluded that he was not able to give a proper answer to the aliens without knowing more. He had no way of knowing which information he held was still sensitive: which he could part with, and which he couldn’t. They obviously wanted information on the planet, on the history of its inhabitants. All he came up with that might further his own standing was more information on the visitors, their actual purpose and their means of arrival, and most importantly, the current state of the galaxy.
He decided to activate his internal communications array. The ancient device drew power in from its surroundings and breathed in life. It swept the entire planet in its search. Its small size and capability did not allow it to search much further, so hope of outside communication, inward or outward, was out of the question. He would have to deal with the Skyrrnians alone, and none else.
No signs of any active signals were picked up. The entire planet was as if it had fallen into a tremendous slumber, and the silence of decay inundated and overwhelmed it in its rest. Every last beacon had gone out, and if one stood outside the fringes of the system, it would be impossible to detect any advanced life upon the planet. The scan did pick up, however, the enormous sprawl of remains from the people he knew had once existed there. The immense urban network that had once loomed over virtually the entire sphere now covered only a few small parts of the planet’s surface.
The silenced flora had crept back and retaken the planet from its cruel dictators. Jagged peaks and humble patches on the ground were all that stood as remnants from that apparently distant time. The android realized that he was not where and even when he thought he was. He searched for grounded ships because he could not search for derelict ones in space, but discovered nothing. A few cargo shipment modules were scattered throughout the planet in various decrepit facilities, but there were no autonomous ships at all. Upon the completion of his scan, the android loaded all the data into his memory.
He analyzed the data carefully and slowly. The planet had clearly seen some defining turning point that had marked its fall. The lack of any ships or signals was quite surprising. There had been an event that had ripped the life force from the planet and left its bones to dry. Only structures, facilities, and robotic constructions were left. There was little to no actual imprint of the Kher’Somaaw people anywhere.
He was quite stupefied. A second analysis was run to try to date the fall. Assuming that what was left on the surface was once all intact all at the same time, the rate of natural decay from organic and inorganic causes was calculated. The materials used were extremely resistant, and automatic energy fields that were theoretically used for temporary enforcement of compromised sections might have given structures vastly greater endurance, assuming that their power supply was not cut. He added factor after factor into the processor, and a rough estimate started forming about how long ago the rubble had stood proudly in the air instead of creeping on the ground.
He estimated the time elapsed from the fully operational urban network to its present ruins to be three hundred million years. The number shocked him. In the cosmic sense, it was small, a good stone’s throw away, but in the sense of the sweep of a civilization, it was an eon. The hypothetical fall that had occurred was again entirely speculation. His last memories were not of a declining culture but a flourishing one, and any amount of time may have passed between his deactivation and the “fall.” He began to understand his situation was quite pitiful and entirely insignificant. His computations looked grim; he had little choice. There was nothing left for him from his old life, it was clearly gone. He also had no possible way of recovering it; the adamant barrier of time stood between him and what it once was. He cast all of it aside and prepared his new options.
These visitors evidently did not pose a shred of threat anymore; there was nothing they could do to make it worse. Whether they came to explore or to salvage it mattered not. With his body crushed, his own feeble existence hung upon their actions. With no bargaining point and no damage to cause, he decided to at least further the knowledge that he had. He prepared his transmission and quickly sent it to them.
After a slightly lengthened wait because of the android’s scans, the now impatient Skyrrnians observed the long message that unfolded upon their screen. It was too large to be displayed all at once comfortably, so only the beginning was presently shown.
-This is the planet Acar. It is the homeworld of the Kher’Somaaw. In the time that I have record of …-