by Nigel Foster
* * *
Except there doesn’t exist, as such.”
“Fuck 'em all but six,” Kara said with genuine wonder, “you’re on a quest!”
“That’s so hard to understand? Why six?”
“Don’t be defensive. You’re not the only one. But mine’s not so important. It’s only about saving Earth. Six to carry my coffin. Old army saying. I do need you, Marc. You and Tatia and me are, apparently, the last best hope. Which makes no sense but I believe it.” She waited, wondering what to do if he said no.
“You’re sure of that?”
“I’m sure.” And discovered that she really was. More than hope, a total conviction that only the three of them could do whatever it was that had to be done.
“Until the mission’s over then,” Marc said quietly. “One way or another.”
Kara nodded, then was surprised by his next remark.
“But there is someone in your life,” Marc said. “You’ve got more assurance.”
“You mean depth.” Of course he’d sense it. They were still simulity connected.
He nodded. “That too.”
“It’s a maybe and possibly distracting, so you’ll have to wait until we’re done.”
“I showed you mine... okay,” as he saw her eyes narrow, “Off-limits for now.”
For a full half second Kara considered admitting that she’d copied Marc’s memories. Who else knew? Marc’s AI was insane, so only Greenaway, Ishmael and her. Let that dog sleep. Then she saw Marc’s quizzical expression. That bloody simulity! He’d sensed she was concerned about something concerning him.
“What’s it like in netherspace?” A question she’d always intended to ask. “How do you eat? Drink?” Kara half smiled. “After you left, I worried you didn’t have sandwiches and a flask.”
“It takes care of you.” There was nothing else to say. That he wanted to say. Netherspace and the entity had taken care of him and always would. To others they were indifferent.
“Sings you a lullaby?”
“You ever tell me about battles you been in? Being an assassin?”
“It’s that boring?”
“If you weren’t there you wouldn’t understand. Remember?”
Kara did. It was how she’d once replied when he’d asked about war. “That extreme? And personal?”
“That impossible to explain. But it’s aware of you.”
“Something I do have to tell you.” And she explained how and why she’d downloaded his memories in the split second before he’d gone into netherspace. Kara expected anger or amusement. She got curiosity.
“My AI went along? Little bastard. How far back?”
“Last couple of months.”
He paused, working out the time.
“From after we got back from Cancri,” she said. “Dartmoor was a good place to end it.”
“Can you give 'em back? That part’s a little fuzzy.” It was as if the encounter with the elemental in Scotland had swamped part of his mind, leaving holes in his memory as the flood subsided.
“You’ll need an AI.”
“Well, it better behave itself. You’re sure Tatia’s still alive?”
Kara took her time. “I’d know if she was dead.” She drained her beer and shook the empty container. A panel slid back and a small Cedric appeared, identical to the one she’d met in the crew room. It rolled up to her, reached for the container with a telescopic arm and took it away.
“It’s the empathy thing,” Kara said. It had to be. Now was not the time to rediscover and become possessed by hope. “She’s alive.”
9
One Earth week after running away with the Originators – triune floating globes joined by metallic umbilicals – Tatia had an insight.
It was, as breakthroughs go, subdued. No trumpets, balloons or cake. No co-workers to shake her hand, no congratulatory hugs. Kara would be well impressed, she thought to herself. So would Marc. And shed a tear, but only a small one. Tatia had quickly learned to ration her emotions. It was either that or wander around the Originator’s craft, alternately weeping and screaming with mad joy, hair wild and clothes rent. It was the sense of destiny that sustained and calmed her. She was where she was meant to be, born to be. As before, when her leadership skills – who knew? – had saved the surviving pilgrims captured by the Cancri. She remembered Kara saying that armies weren’t always needed to win a war. The right person in the right place at the right time could even prevent one. Tatia was the butterfly that would flap her wings in the Amazon and cause a typhoon in China. It was lonely as all hell but weeping wouldn’t help... and if she was to die alone, if the butterfly ended up in a spider’s web, she’d die with dignity and pride. Then wished she hadn’t thought of the spider analogy... although even a tarantula would be company, but what would she feed it? There are no flies on you, Marc had once said and she’d had to ask what he’d meant. Antique colloquial English was not one of her strengths, and...
She understood that the Originators were not the boss pre-cog race.
How did Tatia know they weren’t top dog? She just did. Tatia had been born to meet... destroy those who founded the pre-cog empire. These three-globed freaks weren’t them. And there would be some sort of event, probably violent, when they did finally meet. Not here, not now.
The Originators, she decided, were probably the Praetorian guard. They kept things nice and safe and orderly. Distributed or looted tech, using the vegetable-like Gliese. But they weren’t boss, rather they were as much slaves to the pre-cog world as the Gliese. So pointless to try and negotiate with them. The only beings that mattered were those that had established the event line in the first place.
Never expect logic from the Originators, for whom self-survival was less important than following the plan. Tatia should think of the Originators and others as religious or political fanatics.
< That’s a wonderful insight.
> Maybe it was yours.
< If I did all the thinking you’d just sit and mope.
She’d never liked AIs. But here and now it was the only friend she had. No matter if she couldn’t remember having it fitted. Kara must have had it done, secretly. Or even her bloody father, typical sneaky thing he’d do. But complain too much, and it might take umbrage and go away. That would be a shame because as Tatia discovered the AI had a store of her favourite music and vids. Which was thoughtful of whoever had smuggled the AI inside her. Or merely a pragmatic way to keep her sane.
The insight came after she’d killed a human. Before that there’d been a time of lonely adjustment. The AI told Tatia when it was morning and time to get up. When it was time to go to bed. At first this seemed overly fussy, even silly. In a place with no day or night, what does it matter when you sleep or eat? But after a while Tatia welcomed the discipline. Keeping to set hours was a little like dressing for dinner when alone in the jungle, as did the hero on one of her favourite vids.
Her pod measured four by five metres square and three metres tall. Walls, ceiling and floor were a uniform greyish pink. A low shelf growing out of one wall was soft enough to use as a bed. She missed having a pillow. There were three basins on the opposite wall. One always contained fresh, clean water at pod temperature. No taps, no drain. The middle one had fresh food at the start of every day: vegetables, fruit and once a small pack of ham. The last basin supplied fresh clothes, also at the start of the day. The clothes were never to her taste and rarely fit. She never saw any basin replenished, or food, clothes that she’d refused taken away. It always happened when she was asleep. The same system had been in operation on Cancri: teleporting human food and water – and now oversize jeans or frilly blouses – across vast distances. The AI had no more idea how it was done than Tatia. If she could only reverse the system, perhaps she’d end up in a sweet-water river on Earth. Impossible, but good to imagine every now and then. Just so long as she didn’t take it seriously.
There was a human waste system that looked like a bidet filled w
ith coarse sand. You sat down, did the business, a faint tickling – please, please not a scrabbling, not those insects from Cancri – and stood up, voided and clean, the sand as pristine as before. The AI suggested the sand was actually a life form, like a hive of intelligent silica, and to it Tatia was a god. That was when she decided the AI had a warped sense of humour. So did she.
At times she found herself crying for no apparent reason. Other than being on an alien craft going fuck knew where or what because she’d been obsessed like a silly teen. And even if it hadn’t been like that, even if it was part of a plot, a dance ancient before the Pyramids reared up from the sand, it was her decision, her own fault. Tatia sometimes felt as lonely as the rock Marc had once described... the one tumbling through space towards a destination forever moving further away. Listening to music, watching a vid or chatting to her AI helped.
* * *
Tatia had the run of the craft, with exceptions. Although if the force fields were turned off in space, she’d die outside the pod. But how long would she last inside before the air was exhausted? If the force fields were turned off in netherspace she might go mad. Madder than she already was. If she was. Tatia wasn’t quite sure. She seemed to be thinking about the same things over and over again, like survival and destiny.
So Tatia wandered around at will, although there wasn’t much to see. The craft’s deck and struts were made of a black substance that felt like hard rubber and smelt faintly of apricots. Some of the pods – made of a harder, shiny substance – were opaque, possibly living quarters for the three-globed aliens. Others were transparent, some storage judging by the containers, some filled with incomprehensible equipment. Whenever one of the three-globed Originators went inside, the walls became opaque. Tatia tried following but the alien blocked her way. She got angry. The alien moved off and the pod closed.
There were, Tatia thought, about seven triune aliens, although she only ever saw two at any one time. She had no way of knowing what was inside each metal globe. Could be a brain, a squirrel or something so hideous she’d run screaming.
They had their own personal anti-gravity. Tatia had expected to float when the craft was in normal or netherspace. In fact, she could walk around as on Earth, while the aliens floated. She couldn’t see how they propelled themselves, so assumed some sort of force field.
The atmosphere was also Earth-like although more oxygen rich, according to her AI. For Tatia the craft was like a very large, obscure piece of sculpture. She’d never been too interested in art, so any alien aesthetic was wasted on her. Every now and then one of the alien triunes would float towards her and stop. She’d stare at it until she was bored then walk away. The alien never followed. Once, when she was feeling depressed by the situation, a sudden spark of anger made an inquisitorial alien move hastily away. That was interesting. They could sense her emotions and be hurt? Scared? Damaged? She imagined having a hissy fit so violent the aliens would crash into each other like demented bolas. That had made her laugh and the alien came closer.
Which meant they were sensitive to her emotions. Interesting.
If she was to die out here, forever alone, the Originators would feel her pain.
* * *
Twenty-three point three Earth standard hours after Tatia had joined the Originator ship they came out of netherspace.
Tatia had been in her pod, chivvied there by three triune Originators, persistent more than violent, when something screeched like a nail dragged across rusty iron. The pod door closed but remained transparent, as did the walls. The force fields that formed the ship’s hull changed from dark blue to opaque and suddenly she was staring at a planet. A purple planet that filled her with foreboding. If this was the Originator homeworld, they were welcome to it.
The ship drifted slowly down and landed on a rocky outcrop surrounded by what might be plants. Or very slow-moving inhabitants. She felt the pod lift up and leave the ship, landing a few metres away. The door opened. For a moment Tatia panicked, thinking she’d be marooned.
< If they wanted you dead you would be.
> Aliens, who knows?
< These are top of the food chain. Not Gliese or Cancri. Assume they know, perhaps even understand a little about humans. Maybe this is an experiment. By the way: I’d like a name, please.
> Not ready for that yet. Later.
* * *
Tatia went outside into the breathable but thick and humid atmosphere. Vegetation like pink mouldering fungi under an angry purple sky. Background stink of sulphur and sewage. Tatia had never seen a sci-fi pulp magazine. To her the planet simply looked disgusting. The ground was squishy underfoot. Glancing down, she saw it was covered with a mass of tiny, squirming things. She noticed movement and froze as a shape moved towards her.
Strange how you could always recognise a weapon, no matter how weird the alien holding it.
This alien was a two-metre tall, oozing pile of semi-translucent green and yellow slime, with tentacles. No obvious eyes or mouth. Just tentacles holding a cylindrical object about a metre long. Tentacles stiffened and the object slowly moved to point at her.
Her first reaction was anger and fear. Then, as the adrenalin rush took hold, warrior Tatia surfaced, as she had done on Cancri. The creature was slow. So was the weapon. There was no way she’d die on this fucking planet.
Tatia ran at the creature with a fury born of desperation, and reached for the weapon. A tentacle pushed her hands away. She’d expected the tentacles to be soft, but this one was hard and bruising as steel.
Tatia spat her rage.
The area where her spittle landed immediately turned black. The tentacles vanished and the weapon fell to the ground.
Tatia spat again.
The whole body shivered as the surface turned brown and visibly hardened.
She spat again. Then had to step back as the alien flattened itself into a broad mass no more than a few centimetres high and oozed away from her.
She thought about peeing on it but instead picked up the weapon, flicked a few squirmy things from the barrel, pointed the business end at the creature and pulled what she hoped was a trigger.
It was. The air between creature and Tatia somehow thickened and turned pale blue. A large hole appeared on the alien’s surface. It screamed.
Screamed in her mind. The first strong telepathic contact she’d had. There’d been shadows of thought before, from other dying aliens, but incomprehensible and fleeting. This one was strong. Pain. Disgust. Hate.
Ironic that the one alien whom she could vaguely understand saw her as hateful and disgusting. As she did it.
She fired again. The alien split open to show a runny pink interior, then was swarmed over by squirmy things from the ground.
Pain and anger again.
She fired until there was nothing left of the alien except a scent of roses strong enough to overpower the usual stink.
* * *
Tatia sat in the doorway to her pod, checking herself for squirmy things as three Originators watched from a safe distance. Satisfied she was free of mini-aliens, Tatia went inside her pod. It immediately rejoined the ship.
< That was fun.
> So how did it see me?
< I detected infra-red, ultra-violet and radar emissions.
> You don’t think I should have killed it?
< It was trying to get away.
> Ooze away.
> It had less choice in life than you.
There was a repeat of the screeching sound and the ship’s force field snapped on. A moment later they were rising lazily into the sky. Tatia didn’t look back.
> So what was all that about?
< Possibly a test?
But for what?
Maybe the next planet would answer the question. Tatia was sure there’d be one, as she knew the Originators weren’t top pre-cog dog.
Meanwhile:
> Do you know all about me?
< I have your history, yes.
> Including a
bout my mother?
< You sure it’s wise...
> Answer me!
< Yes. About your mother.
> You can show me? I could hear her voice?
Tatia closed her eyes and saw a tall, blonde woman with a serious expression, lightened by the laughter lines at the corners of her mouth.
And a voice – warm, loving – said, “Hi, baby girl, long time no see.”
An AI creation, yes. But what’s the difference between real and false? When real is what you need, whatever works.
> You wanted a name. I’m calling you Mom, sometimes Mother. You will always use this voice.
A dread thought that never went away: how do I know it is an AI? Could be schizophrenia. Dread voices in the head.
The tears came and Tatia fell asleep dreaming of an unknown childhood.
* * *
Thirty-five years earlier
Deadhead was one of the first bootleg colonies. It was a green and blue planet with three moons, one of them striped purple and gold. Five thousand light years from Earth and around the same size. Founded by three and a half thousand stoner retro fanatics from the West Coast and Midwest of what was still, just about, the USA. All deep in love with the nineteen sixties and seventies and convinced the universe was a psi affair: telepathy, telekinesis, future scrying. They needed privacy to grow. To be ourselves. To preserve our goddamn identity, fer crissake.
The coming of aliens meant a world subsumed by the shock of the new. Aliens and their tech became the only fashion, the only art that mattered, until the world calmed down a little. Even so: You say you’re alternative? But alternative to what?
That was how an average artist, or a good artist doing average work, became world class: aliens collected Marc Keislack’s work.
In time there’d be a revival of interest in the past. Yet Kara Jones’ fascination with twentieth-century TV and movies would be considered a little pointless. The real excitement, people knew, the real beauty and truth always came from the future and outer space.