Exodus to the Stars

by Andreas Brandhorst

  "Who are you?" little Alahandra asked again.

  "I am ... Jorgaldarhelmemerek," the boy replied. He looked down at himself. "And I'm different. My third leg is gone, and so are the Uncertainties." He raised his head. "What kind of place is this?"

  "We are near the castle," the girl answered, as though that meant anything to the boy with the strange name. "Big Alahandra is up to something. She is sick. We must stop her from destroying life."

  The boy then began a peculiar conversation with himself, in which three different voices were noticeable.

  "We are in the base's energy streams, Jorgal. The robots shot at us and killed our bodies, but at the moment of death you brought our consciousnesses into the ... world of machines."

  "Memerek?"

  "I'm here, too, Jorgal. You saved us!"

  "Do you hear the songs? Do you hear how the machines sing?"

  "I've heard a ... voice. You were talking with someone."

  "We are not alone here. There is at least one other sphere of consciousness in the base's systems."

  Little Alahandra listened in confusion. "Can you help?" she then asked. "Can you help me with making big Alahandra well? She wants to destroy life, and that isn't right."

  "The song of chaos," said the boy with a voice that contained all three voices. "I ... understand. The false melodies in the great song, the distorted forms ... I can make bent lines straight and replace dissonances with new harmonies. I can close the holes in the grand symphony."

  "Something has happened," little Alahandra said worriedly. "We must go back, but the fog won't let go of me. Somehow big Alahandra has managed to hold me here."

  The boy stepped closer and took her hand. "I hear her song. Come with me."

  Side by side, little Alahandra and the boy walked through the fog, which lifted after a short while. Up ahead reared the walls of the dark castle. Big Alahandra stood in the gateway, and her hair waved back and forth although no wind blew at all.

  "I knew you would come back," she said, "but you've come too late. It has already happened." She pressed both her hands to her temples. "It hurts inside." Then she saw the boy. "Who is that? Who have you brought?"

  "You are the Mother of Machines," Jorgaldarhelmemerek said. "I've finally found you."

  Little Alahandra saw reverence in his eyes, and happiness. "That is big Alahandra. She brought me here a long time ago so she could be complete and that would make her well again. But it didn't work. She is still sick."

  Big Alahandra turned around abruptly and disappeared into the castle. The little girl looked up—smoke curled above the battlements.

  "A fire," she said. "She's set fire to something."

  Little Alahandra and the boy hurried into the dark castle, through hallways and rooms that the girl knew well although they constantly changed their form. As they searched for big Alahandra, there was another strange internal conversation.

  "Memerek, Jorgal, I have succeeded in finding memory banks and accessing them," the boy said in a different voice as he ran alongside little Alahandra. "A part of me can ... travel in the systems and subsystems."

  "Do you understand what that means?" This voice had a feminine sound, little Alahandra thought.

  "I'm beginning to understand. Big Alahandra ... she's apparently this base's artificial intelligence ... "

  "She is the Mother of Machines! I have been yearning for her ever since I could think."

  "Yes, Jorgal. 'Artificial intelligence' is just another name for her. She has lost a portion of her programming due to the failure of various components, so she no longer controls the entire base. For a long time, the A.I. has combined her pseudo-consciousness with that of a being from this solar system's fifth planet and has tried to heal herself to some extent. She hasn't succeeded."

  Little Alahandra looked at her companion. She had seen and heard, but this boy had apparently seen and heard more. And she thought she understood some of the words.

  "I flew," she said, remembering vaguely. "I flew far from the swarm of other Menttia, and then I found myself here as part of Alahandra. I wanted to help, but I can't heal the sickness by myself."

  "Do you have a heavy head here, too?" the boy's third voice asked. "This is the world of machines, my world. They are different machines, but I hear their songs. I can replace false notes with the right ones."

  The first billows of smoke blew towards them.

  "Are you trying to say that you can repair the artificial intelligence—the Mother of Machines, Jorgal?"

  The boy stopped and little Alahandra saw a touch of anger in his face. "You can't repair the Mother of Machines! But her song is wrong and I can give it harmony again, smooth out the bent lines of its echo-shape."

  Little Alahandra was still holding the boy's hand and she pulled him along with her. The smoke billows were growing thicker, and it seemed to be getting warmer as well.

  "Big Alahandra has set the castle on fire!" little Alahandra exclaimed, shocked by the extent of big Alahandra's sickness. She pushed open the door that led into the hall of columns ...

  Snakes of light raced faster than ever through the many pillars within which it still glittered and sparkled. But many pillars had grown dark and tongues of flame licked up at them.

  Big Alahandra danced in the blazing inferno, her arms spread wide and her robe flowing. "The Enemy must be killed!" she cried. "That is required by my basic programming. I must obey. Even if it means members of the Builders' race will die. The Enemy must be destroyed!"

  "What have you done?" little Alahandra exclaimed, seeing the flames creep towards her as though hungry.

  "This is a very special fire," big Alahandra said, continuing her dance. "It burns everything, even metal. It will leave nothing behind, nothing of anything. The Enemy must be killed, and he will die!"

  She suddenly stopped and little Alahandra raised her hands. "Hold your ears!" she advised the boy.

  Big Alahandra screamed—and vanished.

  Little Alahandra helped the boy up after he had sunk to the floor. "What a horrible sound," he said with three different voices.

  The flames came nearer and more pillars went dark. Little Alahandra coughed in the billowing smoke and drew the boy back to the door. "Come with me," she said. "I know where she went."

  Once more they ran through the castle, along long corridors and past windows beyond which the fog heaved. But in the gray billows there was an occasional flickering, as though from a fire that burned within them as well. They went up long staircases, and finally the girl and the boy reached the castle tower, the room with the arched windows. And there sat big Alahandra on a chair, her upper body bent over forward. She wept softly. Filled with sympathy, little Alahandra went to her, threw her arms around her, and tried to console her.

  "It's the song of chaos," the boy said. "That is the reason for her suffering. It causes her pain."

  "Can you help her?" little Alahandra asked hopefully.

  The boy stepped closer. "I can try." He reached his hand out, touched the woman, and ... disappeared with her.

  The chair in which big Alahandra had been sitting was suddenly empty.

  A hand came out of nowhere, the boy's hand. It felt for little Alahandra and drew her into another world.

  This was the universe of the machine songs. For Jorgal it was the real world, and he no longer floated alone in it. Memerek and Darhel were with him, inside of him, without bodies, but more alive than ever as far as Jorgal was concerned. He heard the many different melodies of the song of chaos, saw their geometric structures, visible echoes of the individual sounds, and in the confusion he noticed a glistening here and a glow there.

  Is that you? asked the glow. Are you the boy?

  "Yes," Jorgal replied to little Alahandra. And to the big one, to the glistening, he said: "I will try to free you from your pain."

  It is too late, she answered. The fire has started and it will destroy everything.

  "It is never too late to relieve pain,
" Jorgal said, and added himself, Memerek, Darhel, and little Alahandra to the song of chaos. He felt their astonishment as he began to sing and smooth out bent lines. The glistening flickered like the flames of the fire in the other world, but the more order was brought to the song of chaos, the steadier the light became. Jorgal changed dissonances, removed their shrill notes, and added new notes to the proper places so harmonies ensued.

  When he began, Jorgal knew nothing of the true extent of the symphony that would come out of the song of chaos, but the more false melodies he corrected, the more gaps he filled, the more the song of the machines grew. It expanded to something that was far more than the sum of its parts.

  Jorgal?

  "Darhel ... do you hear the song? The great, great song? It isn't shrill any more. The harmonies are spreading faster than I expected. Is there a more beautiful song?"

  Jorgal, the artificial intelligence, the Mother of Machines ... She didn't set just the ... castle on fire. The base is burning.

  "There is no fire here," Jorgal replied. "This is the place where the machines sing."

  And it isn't a normal fire. This fire burns metal, like the AI ... the Mother of Machines said. The fire seems to be on an atomic level. I am trying to obtain further information, but I can hardly move from the Here any more to search for data banks. I sense strange ... thoughts? Are they thoughts?

  "They are our melodies," Jorgal said. "They are becoming part of the great song. We are growing together. We will become one, together with the Mother of Machines."

  The base is burning, Jorgal, and we are burning with it. Listen carefully to me. The ... Mother of Machines is a function of the machines. When the atomic fire reaches the part of the base where the machines are in which she ... lives, she will die.

  Jorgal gave a start. "Danger threatens the Mother of Machines?"

  Both her and us.

  And the life that big Alahandra wanted to destroy with the fire. Life is precious. Life must be preserved. I have seen and heard. I know where the room with the thousand lights that wink like eyes is. From there everything that the big Alahandra calls "systems" and "subsystems" can be controlled.

  Jorgal hesitated, looking at the many shapes that surrounded him, echoes of the many melodies that had once formed the song of chaos and now had become a symphony. They floated back and forth and merged with each other, overlaying like notes that climbed over each other and strove ever higher.

  Their lines remained straight and bent only where they should be bent. In comparison with this magnificent artistic realm, other things seemed unimportant and trivial to him, but if danger threatened the Mother of Machines ...

  He glided towards the glow that previously had been bright and shining. As he touched it together with little Alahandra, Memerek, and Darhel, he felt no pain within it any longer.

  He saw strange things that confused him.

  Pay no attention to them, Darhel sang. They are stored information. You have brought us together and gained direct access. They are ... memories.

  Jorgal blinked with eyes that consisted only of thoughts, and saw a thousand lights that also seemed to be blinking.

  This is the right room, announced the melody of the girl he had met in the fog by the castle. From here I brought the life to safety when it was to be eliminated.

  Something changed among the lights. They blinked faster than before, and then they went out—a dark flood seemed to roll over them and choke their glow.

  Surging darkness approached.

  The fire must have reached an important connection point in the control systems, Darhel sang, again using more words that had previously weighed so much in his head and meant so little to Jorgal. Is there another way to locate the lifeforms and help them?

  "I don't know ... " Jorgal yearned for the beautiful shapes, for the symphony that was almost perfect—he had only a little left to straighten out and a few new notes to add.

  Perhaps, little Alahandra sang, if you let me take the lead, Jorgaldarhelmemerek ... I've seen and heard. I know this place very well.

  Little Alahandra's song touched Jorgal and carried him along.

  32

  Levian Paronn

  Lemuria, 4560 dT (51,840 B.C.)

  A question weighed on Levian Paronn's mind and would not let go of him. It was: Did I bring them here? What a ghastly irony of fate that would have been. Would his attempt to protect the Lemurians from annihilation bring about their destruction?

  Meanwhile, the spacesphere was being tracked, and the two Exodus ships had begun a braking maneuver. If Paronn's plan was to work, the flyby would take a specific amount of time, and that meant the sphere's forward momentum had to be taken into consideration as well. It was a difficult maneuver and an extremely dangerous one.

  But Paronn had also come to suspect that the Enemy was having difficulties and was possibly unable to employ his full destructive capabilities. The tracking data plainly showed that the spacesphere was still coasting at its original speed—its drive remained deactivated. And there were no defensive force fields, not even the low-energy navigation shields that prevented micrometeors from striking the outer hull. Paronn observed the dark spaceship in the command module's projection fields and very much regretted having to make do with relatively primitive tracking technology. A thorough hyperscan would have given him information on all the Enemy's capabilities.

  "The Receptors are ready and waiting for your orders," Amelga Dalianta announced.

  Paronn nodded without taking his eyes off the projection fields. Everything would be decided in a few minutes. Lemuria's future was at stake.

  "I still don't know what you're planning," another voice said, reminding Paronn of the Chronicler's presence. He had been concentrating so intently that he had forgotten him altogether. Deshan Apian—younger than he was, and physically much older—sat at one of the peripheral consoles.

  "You're about to find out," Paronn replied. "It's our only chance to knock out the enemy ship."

  Worry showed in Deshan's face. "You're not going to ram the sphere, are you?"

  "That would be the death of us all. And I don't want to die. There is still much work ahead for the Twelfth Hero."

  The slight irony in Paronn's voice went past the Chronicler, and he greatly regretted—not for the first time—that he could not be completely open with him. But he had already been responsible for enough changes. One wrong word would be enough to cause additional problems.

  Paronn saw the HENTECK AVRAM flying just ahead of the AKAN HATA. It's capture fields were shrinking as they returned to standby configuration. The other Exodus ship's maneuvering jets fired, changing its course slightly.

  And the spacesphere came closer, now appearing in the close-range display fields as well. Paronn watched it and sensed the feeling of oncoming disaster spreading within him. He knew such ships, knew them all too well, and he knew exactly who was on board: the Lemurians' worst enemy.

  "The alien ship seems to be damaged," Dalianta said. She was now continuously present in a display field.

  Paronn saw it as well. There were two large holes in the black hull, the edges bulging outwards.

  Deshan leaned forward. "Internal explosion?"

  Just then, the AKAN HATA's capture fields went into ready mode. Paronn felt a slight disorientation as the pseudogravity of acceleration gave way to weightlessness. He checked the course data on the schematic display—the two Exodus ships would pass the alien ship to the left and right at a distance of a few kilometers, as planned.

  "That's certainly what it looks like." Paronn switched to maximum enlargement and stared into the dark holes of a dark spaceship.

  "Critical phase begins in ninety seconds," the Chief Engineer said.

  Paronn operated the main console's controls.

  "But we've seen how it destroyed the two transports that were on the way to Lahmu," Deshan said in amazement.

  The readouts on a display changed. Paronn glanced down at them and knew at once
what it meant.

  "We're receiving signals from the alien ship," Dalianta announced.

  "Yes." Something trembled within Paronn. As though hesitating, his fingers glided over the control panel, and suddenly a voice came out of the com speakers, a mixture of growling and rumbling that made chills run down his back. Deshan Apian tilted his head a little to the side—he of course understood nothing. Paronn, however ...

  " ... have found the way and will destroy you all ... "

  "I will stop you," Paronn said, paying no attention to Deshan's surprise. The Chronicler probably wondered how he knew the Enemy's language.

  There was silence for several seconds.

  "Who are you?"

  "I am the Twelfth Hero Vehraáto. And I am here to lead the children of Lemur into the future."

  "The pestilence of Lemur will now be finally destroyed!" hissed the loudspeakers. "This is the perfect opportunity."

  Paronn broke off the connection.

  "You speak the aliens' language?" Deshan asked, dumbfounded.

  "I have told you that I know the Enemy," Paronn replied softly, and thought of the horror that he also knew.

  Deshan's body tensed as he saw something starting to glow in the upper portion of the dark sphere. He clearly remembered that a similar glow had appeared just before the destruction of each transport.

  "Critical phase in ten seconds," Dalianta announced.

  There was a flash in space in front of the two Exodus ships.

  Paronn pressed the switch that made a connection with the HENTECK AVRAM. "Attention—I'm afraid that the Enemy ... "

  A beam of energy several meters wide suddenly shot out of the sphere and struck the forward section of the first Exodus ship. The segments attached to the central frame blew apart and air bursting into space tore glowing debris along with it.

  Out the corner of his eye, Paronn saw the horror in Deshan's face as the enlargement showed mangled corpses among the twisted fragments of the HENTECK AVRAM.

  "HENTECK AVRAM, maintain your course!"

  "Critical phase beginning." Dalianta's voice sounded unshaken, as though nothing at all had happened. Paronn saw how the capture fields expanded again, reaching out to the alien ship ...