Asymmetry

by A. G. Claymore

Planet 3428

  Viggo woke to glimpses of sky. Several hundred meters above the water, a jagged scar ran along the tunnel roof, bridged in places with rock, roots or both. Bright shafts of sunlight penetrated the humid air, rewarding the adventurous foliage that grew along the banks.

  He lay there, enjoying the beauty of the scene and the warmth of…

  He looked down. One of the chimera kits was sleeping with its head up against Viggo’s side, his arm draped along the creature’s scaled back. He was mildly surprised to find how pleasant it could be to wake with such a deadly creature sharing body heat with him. The young chimera’s acceptance of his presence meant more to him than he would have expected.

  Growing up, he’d always assumed that he was connected to the environment. He’d spent a great deal of time out in the jungle, a habit picked up from his father. He knew how to survive but, he realized, he didn’t know much else.

  And there was so much to know about 3428.

  He had always had a healthy fear of the chimera and he knew how to avoid getting eaten by them. Never in a thousand years would he have considered the possibility of earning a chimera’s trust or friendship.

  He looked down, admiring the clean lines of the young creature. It was strong but graceful, in a deadly sort of way. It was also able to sense the electromagnetic signature of humanoid thoughts, so it was impossible to trick or deceive.

  He looked up, spine tingling, and saw the kit’s mother watching them. He almost felt as though he could sense her pride. She was easily able to sense his admiration, after all. What mother could resist a compliment about her own offspring?

  The kit woke and stretched. Viggo dragged his fingers down the scales behind its aural aperture, knowing it would be appreciated. The kit stretched under the delicious pressure, one hind leg thumping against the hull.

  He let his hand drop and the kit bounded to its feet.

  “Oof!” Viggo wheezed as the kit gave him a playful jab in the belly with its snout before bounding off to its parents.

  “They can sense your father,” Roj said. He tapped his head when Viggo turned to him. “People who spend a lot of time together start to pick up each other’s wave patterns. Our order believes that humanoid consciousness is more of an ocean than a collection of individual puddles…”

  “These chimera know my father?”

  “They like him well enough but they do seem to have taken to you more quickly,” Roj said. “They probably feel less anger from you.”

  “Anger?”

  “Of course. You grew up a prince. You father grew up a pariah. There are patterns in his mind he may not even be aware of but they can sense it, even when he can’t.” Roj shrugged. “The chimera’s motives are untainted by things like revenge or resentment. Even a faint trace of it is mildly distasteful to them. They do what is necessary for survival. Base emotions are for us lesser mortals.”

  The two adult chimera chortled at this.

  “They do, as you can see, appreciate humor,” Roj added dryly. “Especially when it’s at a humanoid’s expense.”

  “My father never struck me as an angry man.”

  “He’s not, really,” Roj agreed, “but the anger is still there. Even though he probably doesn’t realize it, it’s still floating around inside his mind. It puts our four-legged friends on edge sometimes. You may not have seen it but you will, now that your enemies are trying to resurrect the old system that spawned all that anger in the first place.”

  Viggo thought of Hallie and his chest felt constricted by the fear. The entire chimera family stopped what they were doing and looked at him, heads tilted in mute inquiry.

  “A friend of mine,” he told them. “She’s a part of the family that’s causing all this trouble but I can’t believe she’d have anything to do with it. I’m just worried she might get caught up in this mess because of her last name.” He wasn’t sure how much they understood but it felt as though they got the gist of it well enough.

  His own head tilted in imitation of the beasts. I can actually feel their sympathy, he thought, amazed. Were these creatures connected, in some way, with the monks’ ability to project fears? He let out a short sharp breath of surprise.

  Were they connected with the precognitive abilities of his own people? Both he and his father spent a lot of time out hunting in the jungles. Old Sam Fletcher, who’d spent a fair amount of time hunting, as one expected of a lord, had also enjoyed a large advantage over most of his people.

  The hunters spent much of their time in territory claimed by the chimera. Viggo and his father both had, on average, a ten second advantage over the regular citizens, most of whom never ventured out of the city.

  He was distracted from his theory by the river, which had been widening for some time and now was a river no more. It had flowed out into what appeared to be an underground lake.

  There was light coming down from above, not quite as bright as the gaps in the tunnel roof but it was made up in volume. There was an intricate tracery of semi-transparent paths that let light into the gloomy cavern and flocks of flying creatures dipped and wheeled in the shafts of light, hunting insects and small flying reptiles.

  “When we built the South Abbey,” Roj said, “this honeycomb of rock above the cavern let in a lot more light. We decided to glaze it and flood the upper surface to avoid detection. We lost some of the natural light but, from above, all you see is swamp.”

  Viggo looked up at the glowing paths, admiring the difficulty in creating such a structure over what had to be several square kilometers. Then the monk’s words fully registered. He returned his gaze to the water around them but he could see no monastery.

  “Over there,” Roj pointed.

  Viggo followed the finger, frowning. Then he thought he could see a row of dark dots in the gloomy mists. Windows? “How do you light the interiors?” he asked. “Do you have chimera dens to encourage that bio-luminescent lichen or is there some kind of plant that sends light energy down to its roots?”

  “No,” the monk replied, raising a sardonic eyebrow. “We use geo-thermal power plants, just like you have in your arco.”

  “But, back at your cell…”

  “That cell is less than a day’s walk from your city. Some of your people might be there right now, searching for you.”

  “Until they notice the bloody mess the chimera left behind,” the woman added, amused. “Then they’ll likely clear out!”

  “Indeed,” Roj agreed placidly, “but they wouldn’t clear out if they’d found a properly maintained geo-therm unit with signs of recent use. They’d launch a full-on search of the whole region.”

  “So your outlying cells are kept rustic for security reasons…” Viggo said, more in agreement than as a question. “How many cells do you have?”

  “None of your damn business,” Roj said, smiling, “that’s how many we have.”

  “Fair enough.” Viggo returned the smile. He looked ahead again. The row of dots had sprouted a roof above them and other structural features were starting to emerge from the mists. Had his father come here? Would he be allowed to leave?

  Pie on the Windowsill

  Purgatorium system, Outer Reaches

  “Contact!” the garbled voice announced.

  Odin glanced involuntarily at the sound emitters on the ceiling before dragging his gaze back down to the central holo. Centuries on Earth had given him some primitive habits.

  “Mediu… …trol heading your way,” the voice said, sounding like someone had taught gravel how to speak. “…ing back now.”

  “Fleetwide on channel one,” Odin subvocalized. The secure link icon pulsed green.

  “Everyone remember,” he growled to his fleet captains, “planar formation and calm heads. We have a specific mission here.”

  The holo began to populate with enemy positions relayed by Odin's scoutships. Twenty-four Dactari scout sliders were streaking toward the Alliance formation, unaware they were about to make contact.

&nbs
p; June stepped into the middle of the enemy group and selected seven of the tiny scouts. Their icons turned yellow and began to pulse. The remaining seventeen turned crimson.

  “You all have the updated trace,” Odin told his captains. “The yellow ones aren’t the droids we’re looking for.”

  Secure channel or not, interception was always a possibility. Old Earth stories made for useful code-phrases, which is why a mandatory movie night was held before they left Alliance space.

  Odin’s eyes narrowed. “Halfdan!” he admonished, “keep formation, dammit! This isn’t a race!” If he let them forget about the little things, they’d soon forget when they were supposed to stop shooting as well.

  And they were out here for a bit of strategic fire control, not wanton slaughter.

  “Resolving our pickets now,” the sensor officer announced, “and we’ve got live telemetry now on the hostiles! Twenty-four times Dactari scout sliders inbound.”

  The scouts from their security picket were racing back to the main body of Odin’s fleet, hotly pursued by the enemy who’d been allowed to spot them.

  “All ships, engage eligible targets,” Odin ordered. His body shivered as the main armament howled. Norns! he thought, I’ve been idle for too long! I could get used to working with the LRG!

  For a Midgaard of Odin’s many centuries, battle was one of the few ways to really feel alive. Only in combat, where death might come stalking, did one connect with one's own mortality and truly appreciate the moment.

  He glanced over to June. She was standing on the edge of the battle holo, her eyes blazing as she reprimanded a captain for engaging one of the yellow targets. His eyes followed the graceful curve of her neck to where it disappeared inside her armor.

  Well, he thought, not just in battle… He shook his head, driving away the insane temptation to order the bridge cleared.

  He forced his mind back to business. To call it a battle would have been ludicrous. The sliders were damned fast but not very good at turning.

  They plowed straight down the throat of the Midgaard formation, directly into their guns. Most of the Midgaard vessels only fired a single volley from their mains and that was more out of excitement than tactical sense.

  The heavy rounds were far less effective than the point-defense gunnery and the deadly mosquitos that had shocked Caul’s fleet at Khola. The missiles ejected from side launchers, passing through the shield matrices and racing toward the enemy formation.

  The AI firmware in the missiles, greatly improved from the old days, authorized only nineteen of the thirty-eight weapons to release their sub-munitions.

  The individual warheads blasted free from the missile bodies. Micro pitch-drives winked to life and started dropping them down artificial gravity wells toward their targets.

  Accelerating at twenty three times Earth gravity, the warheads initiated their detonation sequences several kilometers out from their unshielded targets. The electrical impulses had just enough time to fire the initiator charges before the weapons impacted the enemy hulls.

  Odin let out a deep breath. They were only seconds into the confrontation and they’d already run out of targets. It was frustratingly short and embarrassingly one-sided.

  “Fleet-wide,” he sub-vocalized. “Transmit in the clear.”

  The orange channel icon pulsed, confirming an unsecure link to the fleet was now in use.

  “Gods take your eyes!” he roared dramatically. “You’re letting them get away! No one escapes Odin’s wrath!”

  There were six of the seven yellow icons still active. Given the unpredictable nature of combat, it was an acceptable result. The six were streaking away on lateral tangents, trying desperately to save their skins.

  And they’d just heard a juicy tidbit from their enemy who’d foolishly transmitted his identity in the clear.

  June sighed. “Well,” she said, turning to him with a grin. “We’ve laid the pie out on the windowsill to cool. Let’s hope someone’s interested.”

  The grin froze as she looked at him. She raised an eyebrow, cocking her head playfully.

  Odin wasn’t sure why this fight hadn’t dampened her spirits but he wasn’t inclined to ask. For once the Norns had woven him a break and he’d be damned if he wasted it.

  “Solveig, take us all back to the main fleet as soon as we finish recovering the unexpended mosquitoes,” he ordered.

  June was already stepping through the aft hatch. He followed, rounding the corner into the short hallway that led only to their quarters.

  He stepped inside to find her armor, already folded into a small cube, just inside the door. Her underarmor suit lay halfway between the armor and the shower room. He was astounded at how she’d managed that in the handful of seconds before he’d entered, and mildly disappointed that he’d missed it.

  Then he grinned and ordered his armor to remove itself.

  A wise man does not complain about the fine details of his good fortune, he thought.

  Abbot and Goodfellow

  South Abbey, Planet 3428

  Viggo followed Roj into the main hall of the South Abbey. The floor was paved in a semi-translucent stone common in the volcanic northern region of the planet’s only continent, hinting at a trade network between this abbey and others. The walls and ceiling were of the same trained-root living style he’d seen at the cell but on a much grander scale.

  Here, the space defined by the live roots was well over thirty meters high. The roots seemed an integral part of the order’s design philosophy.

  The buildings of the lower town were of a more recognizable design – walls, roofs – but the monastic structures themselves used roots as structural elements.

  This meant they had to be built much higher on the jagged spine of rock that rose from the middle of the lake, soaring up to support the cave roof. Bioluminescent plants grew everywhere, lining the streets that wound their way up to the monastery. They bathed the lower town in a permanent soft twilight.

  He’d expected to find some kind of throne or dais at the head of the main hall but, instead, there was a lowered circle in the floor with a mosaic of a star in its center. The senior monks stood around the perimeter watching him approach. The abbot, presumably, was one of them.

  Having been coached by Roj, Viggo stepped quietly through the gap in the circle of monks and moved to the center of the star. Roj stepped into the gap, sealing the circle and symbolically taking responsibility for the stranger it enclosed.

  A chimera emerged from behind a column of thick woven roots and slipped between two monks to enter the circle. She came to sit in front of Viggo. He could feel a sense of recognition and smiled. “Hello, elder sister,” he greeted her, nodding politely.

  He saw several monks, out of the corner of his eye, exchanging glances at this interaction. They’d shown no surprise at her arrival so he figured chimera were allowed free run of the place but they didn’t seem to expect him to have developed a rapport with the creature. That has to be a good thing, right? He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her.

  The chimera waggled her head and chortled.

  “Viggo Rickson,” an elderly female voice rang out. The voice was anything but frail. It held an absolute authority. “You have fled from your people and now we must come to a decision on the matter of granting you asylum. This has never been done for an outsider before.”

  Viggo was aware of this. Roj had briefed him over the three days they’d waited for this audience to be assembled. Asylum sounded cozy but it was bound about by rules and restrictions. It meant he’d become a full member of this society.

  It meant staying down here for life – all several thousand years of it.

  “Revered Abbot,” he responded, turning to her and bowing deep in the style of the old empire they’d left behind. “I thank you for your generous consideration in this matter but I must raise a point of order.”

  “A point of order?” Her head leaned back slightly.

  “Ah, yes Your Grace.”
He ran a fast search on his implant. You should have spent more time preparing for this! he told himself. “An affair of precedence,” he explained, having found the proper phrase from the old imperial manuals.

  “The meaning of the first phrase is clear enough,” she snapped. “What isn’t clear is the reason for its use. What is the matter that you feel we are skipping over?”

  “Well,” he began cautiously, “meaning no disrespect nor any lack of gratitude for your hospitality, Madam Abbot, I believe it should first be ascertained whether I’m actually requesting asylum.” Or acquiescing to imprisonment, he thought to himself.

  This caused a minor uproar. The monks entered into several discussions at the same time, depending on where they stood in the circle. They had all clearly assumed that he’d be happy to stay here or, at least, that he’d prefer it to whatever fate waited for him on the surface.

  Viggo had spent no small amount of time considering this, his first thrust. Rather than begging permission to leave, he felt it would be better to start off by questioning the entire premise. Nobody had asked him if he wanted to be here.

  “You are refusing asylum?” she asked.

  Viggo fought off a sudden onslaught of fear. Was he making the right decision when returning to the surface was so fraught with danger? He shook his head, both in response to her question and to clear his head of the assault.

  “No, this involves no refusal,” he insisted. “The ancient laws are very clear on the subject of asylum. It must be requested in accordance with custom. I have made no such request, which means that any consideration of asylum would be premature.”

  “You would prefer incarceration over asylum?” she demanded, her face showing the first traces of anger.

  Her expression was accompanied by another wave of fearful images in Viggo’s mind. He had to force himself to concentrate. “So, you purport to offer me asylum from… yourself?” he asked mildly.

  This caused an even greater uproar. These monks dedicated their lives to harmony, it had to be uncomfortable being called out for hypocrisy. Some were clearly angered and he could feel the tendrils of terror creeping into his mind.