Revelations

by Nigel Foster

  Tse had said Kara would learn the truth about her sister. That didn’t mean her sister was still alive... and yet. And yet Kara had no sense that she was dead. And surely she would, being an empath. If I allow the empath thing to flourish. Don’t try to control it, no matter how painful. If she accepted the past and embraced hope.

  Cleo said that boojums are avatars of emotion. What would hope look like? Hate, envy, joy, gratitude, lust? Could you tell by looking at them?

  Kara felt tired, closed her eyes to sleep. Then sat bolt upright as another truth pierced her brain.

  The alien pre-cogs were, well, pre-cog. They saw futures, outcomes, time-ruled stepping stones in the same way that Tse did. That included problems, setbacks. If this happens, then this won’t and it will be bad.

  They know who we are.

  They know that we’re coming.

  They’ll try to stop us.

  > Salome!

  << I’m busy.

  > Screw you! We could be attacked in netherspace or anywhere!

  << Cedrics are all primed and ready.

  > You knew?

  << Part of my briefing.

  Why hadn’t Greenaway said anything? She knew the answer. Because it might have affected her behaviour. For a moment blind fury for him, GalDiv and the world. Then a thought quietly, almost humbly, entered her mind. He’s counting on me coming to the right conclusions, making the right choices. Okay, this is still a desperate mission, but he’s got faith in me. That can’t be bad. Still, we’ll have a conversation when I get back.

  * * *

  Kara strode into the control room and shouted “Salome!” Then stumbled as the SUT lurched to her left, then back again. “What the fuck?”

  << Apparently you call them boojums, come to say hello. Or destroy us. Not always easy to tell.

  > I thought Wild ships were never touched? It seemed a good time for clarity.

  << Very rarely, Salome corrected. << But have more faith in the hull than trusting a netherspace entity to behave nicely. We’re surrounded by a charged plasma field that keeps the entities away. It seems to hurt them. But always a chance that we’ll meet one that doesn’t care about the pain.

  Without thinking Kara reached for the little box Greenaway had given her. It felt good in her hand, as if touching an old friend. Why hadn’t he, or Cleo, mentioned that the boojums might, just might attack?

  Because it could have affected her behaviour.

  Her life was marked by deceit.

  8

  Kara had once seen a boojum. A huge tentacle that seemed to flick at a spacer who’d spent too long in the Up, and wanted to retire to netherspace. Just for a second and then she’d looked away. Look too long at the insane colours and movement and you go mad. And yet it holds a terrible attraction. Over time you begin to yearn for it. Over time it seems to yearn for you. That spacer wasn’t the only human who’d ever given in and walked naked into chaos.

  She sat frozen in the control chair as the SUT rocked from side to side. As with the first and last time she’d experienced boojums, she could sense them.

  Sense them.

  Use your empathy. Yes, even for something you can’t see and don’t understand. Her military training took over: First, know your enemy as yourself. Or at least well enough to kill the bastard – or prevent it killing you.

  > I want an outside view.

  < It will drive you mad, from Ishmael.

  > Only after ten minutes. Tell Salome. Transparent hull. Now.

  Kara stared at the beginning of everything she knew. All around her. She felt nausea and a rising terror. Fought them both back down. The colours talked to her. Nonsense talk but so seductive.

  What the hell was I thinking? There’s nothing...

  But maybe there was, amidst the riot of colour that made her eyes ache.

  Like a test for colour blindness. A myriad of coloured dots camouflaging an outline that some can’t recognise. All you can do is join the dots.

  < Seven minutes left.

  > Switch off at nine point five one. No more chat.

  It was difficult, damn near impossible, but if she squinted, and made the occasional jump, she could just about make out a shape. Shapes. There was more than one. And seeing, Kara could try to empathise.

  Oh, that is so... so weird... oh, that hurts... oh.

  They were aware of her as Kara, as someone interested in them.

  She feels her sister’s arms around her and knows LOVE. Smells the acrid scent of explosion, tastes blood EXHILARATION. Sees the tortured body of a comrade HATE. Images, scents, tastes, sounds, sensations fill her mind.

  The pain is deep in her gut, where the emotions live.

  TERROR SADNESS CONTENTMENT LUST CONCERN SYMPATHY

  No, no, too strong... I can’t...

  The screens snapped off. The empathy link faded.

  > Thanks Ishmael.

  < That was extreme.

  < A bad ten minutes.

  < Only three point three.

  It had felt like a lifetime. She knew why humans had gone mad in netherspace. Your past life and all the emotions associated with every action raised to an insane level and swirling ever faster inside your head... until you’re dragged down into the maelstrom of your own mind... oh, the pain... until your synapses fry and a merciful darkness descends to leave you drooling or dead.

  How the hell had Marc survived?

  “We got visitors.”

  She spun round and saw Marc leaning against the wall. “They woke you?”

  He nodded. “We have a relationship.”

  The SUT lurched again. Kara thought about horses rubbing against a fence. Elephants against a tree. “You attract them.”

  He sighed. “I guess. These are pretty much okay. Some aren’t. You know what they are?”

  She did. “They have awareness but that’s all. They’re missing a mind, they want to belong, much like a dog needs a home. Except some just want to destroy. Others are alien. And some are made of many emotions, some conflicting. Foam keeps them out. Foam keeps us in. Except, maybe, the tiniest hole, smallest tear. Say an SUT comes out of n-space to take a star reading,” talking faster as the pieces fit together, “and this tiny little bit of rock, too small to be detected, hits at a huge speed and makes a hole. Back in n-space the things” – she’d stopped thinking of them as boojums, they were too dangerous, too weird – “now have a way inside...”

  Marc walked across and touched her arm. “Not just a smart-ass killer.”

  “I had it explained. True?”

  He shrugged. “Pretty much. There’s a link, relationship between them and the fields of pure intelligence around some planets and suns.” And wondered how he knew it. Something gleaned from netherspace? Or more likely from the entity in Scotland.

  “This is a Wild SUT. Doesn’t need foam. But can you get them to go away?”

  “They seem to be interested in you as well. That empathy working hard?”

  “Better go Up.” She meant normal space.

  < There’s a slight problem. Salome has been affected by those things. She is in a continual loop, while humming the first three bars of an old song called “Stand By Your Man”. Doubtless she will recover. Or I can handle this SUT. Except there are a few padlocks, mathematical, I have to figure out...

  > For fuck’s sake! Where is Salome, physically?

  < Not sure I should...

  > You can be replaced. For “can” read “will”.

  < Open that hatch to the left of the console.

  * * *

  Inside was a silvery metal ball the size of a small melon, cradled by three supports. The area around the ball shimmered, as if it was underwater. Kara remembered someone saying that part of an AI’s mind extended into another dimension, so it actually had far more memory than was apparent. The memory could be accessed and processed faster than the speed of light, too.

  > Where’s the chip?

  < Inside the ball. Ishmael sounded resigned. < It un
screws.

  * * *

  A slight prickling as her hands pierced the multidimensional field. The metal was ice cold in her hands but unscrewed easily. Inside was a large plasmet chip apparently unconnected to anything. Kara picked up the chip, banged it hard twice on the console, a third time for luck, replaced it, screwed the ball back up and closed the locker. Her hands looked mildly sunburnt.

  > Salome?

  << I’d have been okay. She sounded resentful.

  > We, on the other hand, probably not. Take us Up.

  * * *

  A moment later the SUT appeared in normal space.

  “A little drastic,” Marc said, trying not to laugh. “Even basic.”

  If she tried, and she did and promised herself never again, Kara could sense the things as a low hum of conversation from people in a distant room.

  “It worked. You’re welcome.”

  “Okay, thanks, well done. You could have broken it.”

  “Salome. She likes being called Salome. Where’s your AI?”

  “Retreated into a la-la trance. Do not even think of bouncing me against a wall.”

  “You can’t break plasmet even with a bomb.” Kara shrugged. “Seemed like the right action to take. Salome, sure you’re okay?”

  << Only a slight headache – I know, no body, no head. But a girl can dream.

  “Ishmael, monitor her. Salome, get the Cedrics ready.

  * * *

  Full visual back on. Marc, keep on checking for other SUTs or spacecraft. Large rocks. Any possible danger.” Their SUT’s instruments could and would do it far better and quicker. But getting him involved would hasten his full return to the human world.

  “What do you expect?” he asked quietly.

  “The pre-cogs know we’re coming.” She thought. “Know where we are, might be at certain moments. This could be one of them.”

  “You know,” he said, “that never occurred.” Maybe not the Master of netherspace after all.

  “Nor me. So obvious, yet so easy to miss. Pre-cognition shows the way stations on the way to your goal. But also incidents leading to outcomes to avoid.” But if we’d known, we probably wouldn’t be here... Anson was right. And Tse knew all this, not just for us but for billions upon billions of people. Who knows, maybe the entire sentient galaxy.

  * * *

  The hull became transparent. Marc had seen this happen once before, leaving old Scotland for Iceland. But then he’d been aware of the Earth beneath. Now there was nothing, above or below, except the faint twinkling of stars light years away. All around them the deep, limitless black of space. The first time he’d gone Up, and the SUT had left n-space for a navigation reading, Marc had become fascinated. He’d seen a lone meteorite move serenely past, journeying to the edge of a universe that would die before it got there. Back then he’d believed that without him the meteorite would be pointless. To be perceived is to be.

  * * *

  Now he knew that the universe and everything in it didn’t matter. Only netherspace was real.

  Netherspace. Where he’d caught the merest hint of something deeply profound and unknowable. So far away that distance no longer mattered. Not that there was distance in netherspace, all points equally close to each other. That’s what you get with infinite dimensions but no time.

  Marc knew that sometime he’d need to explain to Kara that the human–alien pre-cog war no longer interested him. His only passion now was netherspace and that distant magnificence that now owned him.

  He did care about her. And very much about Tatia, would do what he could to get her back... unless or until he went walkabout in n-space again. He wasn’t ready, though, and didn’t know why. Maybe it was returning to three-dimensional space. Maybe there was something here to help find the magic he sought. A clue, a direction, a word to be uttered, a diagram to be drawn...

  Two alien craft winked into existence.

  One shaped like a dull metal torus or twisted loop, at least a hundred metres tall, fifty metres wide. The other a large, orange-coloured ball fifty metres across.

  Both within two hundred metres of the SUT.

  Spider-like shapes erupted from the SUT and sped towards the alien craft.

  Violet-coloured beams flicked on from the torus and focused on the SUT.

  A siren sounded.

  << Fuck this, from Salome.

  “They want to kill us!” from Marc.

  “We know,” from Kara.

  The SUT trembled.

  The spider shapes reached and attached to both alien craft... and slowly burrowed inside.

  The part of the SUT hull illuminated by the violet beams turned silver and began to flake away.

  << Oops!

  Cracks appeared on the torus’ surface and the violet beams vanished. The orange ball started to glow.

  The cracks widened. Debris erupted into space.

  << Hold on! “Hold on!” Kara shouted at Marc.

  As the SUT accelerated violently, throwing Marc to the floor, its hull turned silver.

  Marc and Kara watched on the darkened vid display as torus and ball exploded.

  “What the hell?” from Marc.

  “Cedrics doing their job. I guess.”

  Ten minutes later Kara and Marc stood in the control room, she with a beer, he with a glass of wine. The SUT needed some minor repairs before returning to netherspace. In the meantime Kara relayed Salome’s explanation of the encounter, thinking it was time Marc got a new AI.

  Yes, the SUT was armed. But the alien craft were too close for the Wild’s weapons to be used safely. That was when Cedrics came into their own. They could dig themselves into all known alien craft and once there, cause as much mayhem as possible, down to exploding with the force of a .25 kiloton nuclear explosion.

  Kara had felt a little sad about the Cedrics, despite Salome’s reassurances that they were the most basic AI possible – developed by human beings, in fact. If they had emotions, which they didn’t, not even simulated ones, dying to protect the SUT would make them very, very happy.

  “As far as Salome figures it...” Kara relayed.

  < Me too. Ishmael sounded resentful.

  “I mean both AIs figure it,” Kara said, “the aliens picked us up in netherspace. Couldn’t do anything there because they’d be destroyed. So waited until we went Up. Unless they’re using pre-cog to know where we’ll be.”

  “It’s that last.” Marc paused, considering. “I need to be truthful, Kara. About this mission...”

  Kara cut him off. “Tatia’s waiting for us, Marc. We’re both going to find her.” Marc was lost to her, to them, perhaps forever. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. “And I do mean both. Once she’s safe, once we’ve completed the mission, you can do what the hell you like. For now I need you by my side. Okay?”

  For a wild moment he considered leaving. Except they were in real space. He had no idea if netherspace would claim him if he stepped into the void. Anyway, Kara would stop him. The knowledge of his powerlessness – what good is netherspace to me here? – was bitter in his mouth. Kara was the closest friend he’d ever had. Why couldn’t she understand? What possible, practical use could he be? Unless...

  “I could protect you in netherspace. If I was in it.”

  “You have that much control?”

  Marc was silent, then from nowhere: “Are you and Tatia having a thing?”

  Kara looked at him stony-faced then allowed the briefest of smiles. “A thing?”

  The lord of netherspace – still embarrassingly human – wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Too late to back out. “Maybe emotion clouding your judgement?” It was all he could think to say.

  “I haven’t seen Tatia since she went with the Originators. What are you, jealous?” Kara cursed silently. The accusation had jumped into her mind and contained a tacit admission.

  “But you did have a thing, right? On the way back from Cancri?” And yes, Marc realised, he was jealous. But not in the way that
either he or Kara would have expected.

  “This thing again,” she said, playing for time. “You mean did we fuck?”

  “Forget it.” He knew but didn’t want to and began to turn away.

  “We can’t. It’s out there.” She felt inside her pocket for the wooden talisman. “Remember what I was like when you went into netherspace?” She thought of what he’d been through, that even sociopaths might need a hug.

  He turned back. “Yes. You were upset.”

  “Real tears, Marc. I do not often cry. You were and are special to me. It goes way past that simulity bond. You are my friend. Always will be. So yes, we did have sex. While you were with Nikki the navigator or Henk the whore.

  * * *

  And that’s all it was, and the only time it happened. I’m sad if you’re upset, Marc. But we...”

  “Were never meant for each other. Except for a casual. Like scratching an itch. And that would fuck with the friendship.”

  “First a thing and now an itch,” Kara said straight-faced. “So flattering.”

  “She came to me, you know? And I turned her down. Because she was confused, in a state from Cancri. And I told myself that was part of changing from psycho to sociopath. Give the man a gold star.”

  “Ever occur that women might also need sex to relieve tension? You saw Tatia as an innocent warrior princess... holy fuck, love, you were scared of falling for her!”

  “There’s that age thing,” he said weakly.

  Oh no there’s not. But probably not the best time to explain. “Which would only matter if you genuinely cared.” She began to laugh. “And I thought you fancied me!”

  “You’re a very attractive itch.” He knew the metaphor was confused, but she’d get the idea. “That business on Dartmoor...”

  “Was one of your elementals,” she finished for him. Like the Severn, too. “So if it’s been Tatia all along, why are you so desperate for netherspace?” But I fucked Greenaway away from the river, no elementals, and the day after and it was even better. And maybe I’m in love.

  “I only, maybe, just realised about Tatia.” He knew he sounded unsure. “And everything’s changed. Look. What I saw, sensed in netherspace now owns me. I have to find out what it is. Even if I can’t understand it, I must go there.