“I can do this on my own.”
“Okay, okay.” She got out from under his arm, took a step back, and waited.
“Aren’t you going to leave?” he asked.
“You weren’t this bashful before.”
“First off, I could hardly stand before, and I don’t remember anything from the last…several days.”
“Four.”
“And second, it’s rude to watch someone pee. And I don’t know why you’d want to.”
“Got nothing better to do.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll stand in the corridor and twiddle my thumbs.”
Galen did his business and stepped out. She helped him back toward the cargo bay where they slept. Now that he was moving, though, he didn’t want to go back to sleep again, not yet.
“Can we walk around? My leg hurts, but the rest of me is getting stiff. I could use the exercise.”
“If you want.”
“What’s in all these rooms?” he asked. “Why are all the doors locked?”
“Because I don’t want anyone going into them.”
“Why?”
“That’s my business.”
“You don’t have guests though.”
“I know that.”
“So why lock them?”
She frowned. “That’s…that’s how it has always been done on this ship.”
"Okay," he replied. "So you don't want me on the bridge?"
“We can go there,” she said quietly. “It’s…okay.”
“You’re a strange girl. You know that, right?”
“Of course, I do. I’m not stupid.”
“And the double doors at the back of the cargo—”
“I call it the living room.”
“Okay. At the back of the living room. Do those open?”
“I don’t know if they do anymore, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The fusion generator’s in there. It blew a rod years ago.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “The radiation—”
“Isn’t a problem. The plasma containment field and the walls are working as they should. You’d have been roasted alive otherwise.”
“‘Nevolence! Why are you living here?!”
“It’s home. You like your home, too, right?”
“I don’t really have one. I move around a lot.”
She shrugged. “Then you could never understand.”
“So the ship…it’s only powered by its flux capacitor?”
She nodded. “Ever since it crashed.”
“How do you recharge the capacitor?”
“I spend a lot of money on power packs, bringing one or two in each month and transferring their energy into the ship’s core battery.”
“You could buy a condo in the city for the amount that must cost.”
“But a condo wouldn’t be home, would it?”
Galen stepped over to gaze out onto the planet. “The moon’s pretty, but there’s not much else to look at here, huh? Just barren rock.”
“There’s a lot more to it if you know how to look.”
“You’re trapped here,” he blurted out, instantly regretting it.
She stepped back from him, glaring. “I’m what?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”
“But you did, and here we are.”
“Reading people is my job. And I’m an untrained second generation empath. I pick up on things by accident sometimes.”
“Like how angry I am right now?”
“How emotionally wounded and conflicted you are, actually.”
“Screw you!” She stalked off. “Limp back to bed on your own.” She was halfway down the hallway when she shouted, “And don’t touch anything in there!”
15
Oona Vim
Oona meandered aimlessly through the corridor of the ship, making several circuits, before eventually wandering into cargo bay two.
All of Gav Gendin’s Ancient artifacts were stored there, along with all of the archaeological equipment and extra machine parts Bishop had crammed in so he’d have room to use the other cargo bay for repairs to the Tezzin skimmer car.
It was a mess. The inertial dampeners hadn’t been able to adequately compensate during the battle with the pirates and crates lay chaotically strewn around the room.
Bishop’s makeshift repair bay was in even worse shape. That’s where the ship had suffered a tear in its hull. It was repaired now, but the bay was still a jumbled mess.
Oona suspected Bishop didn't actually care. He had a wild, almost untamed madness when it came to his repair work and creations. As soon as Octavian was caught up with the last of the repairs, though, she was sure everything would be returned to order.
But that would have to wait. Octavian was now scrambling ant-like along the outside of the hull, making further repairs. He had refused to allow the others to put on the last spacesuit and help him. Octavian argued that their lack of experience along with not knowing how to do the job made it an unnecessary risk, especially since nothing was in critical condition or that had to be fixed immediately.
Oona opened one of the boxes filled with fragments and peered into it sadly. All that remained of High Priestess Lyoolee’s civilization were these broken stone pieces and scraps of metal. There was hardly anything left.
Would that happen to Terran civilization too one day? Obliterated, with some future people trying to sort out who and what they’d been based on nothing but wreckage?
“Arty, why is there so little left? I’ve read histories of Terra. The pyramids in Egypt have stood thousands of years. We have statues and devices preserved from vanished civilizations. So how could an entire galaxy-spanning people’s remains disappear?”
“No one knows, madam,” Artemisia replied. “There are some theories if you’d like to hear them. Though I’m afraid you won’t find any of them particularly convincing or satisfying.”
“Which one seems the most plausible to you?”
“That whoever or whatever destroyed their civilization vindictively laid such waste to their planets that hardly anything was left. As for any remains of the Ancients themselves, perhaps it was some unknown property of their biology at play. You could ask the priestess about that when you see her next.”
“If I ever see her again.”
Oona sifted through the box, trying to figure out what the pieces were. She couldn’t even tell how Gav Gendin had known what they were. Nothing about the ones in this box seemed unique.
A yellowish fragment with faint engravings caught her eye. She held it up, turning it one way then another. She couldn’t tell what the engravings were, or even if that’s what they were. Maybe they were just the result of weathering instead.
There was something familiar about them, though, as if she had seen—
Oona’s eyes rolled back into her head, and her knees buckled. As she fell, a single thought ran through her mind: Why does this always happen when I’m standing?
Oona once again found herself in the dream of the Ancients’ gleaming, many-spired capital city as Lyoolee remembered it.
Hands interlaced, the priestess made a half bow and greeted her. “Welcome back,” she said in her melodic voice. “I hope you are well.”
In the bright sunlight, the thin lavender robe she wore hid little of Lyoolee’s tall, delicate form. The light caught her opalescent, green-tinted skin and the faint, barely noticeable blue lines that swirled across her arms and face. Her almond eyes glistened as she smiled, revealing pointed teeth. Her lustrous sable hair fanned in a light breeze.
“I hope I’m well, too,” Oona said with a frown. “I was standing when we connected.”
The priestess frowned with sympathy. “I am certain you will be fine. If you were seriously injured, we would not be able to communicate.”
Oona stared up at the giant tower looming before them with its engraved stonework. She smiled. She’d held in her hand a fragment of this tower.
“Gav Gendin visited your homeworld.”
�
�What makes you say that?” Lyoolee asked.
Oona gestured toward the tower. “I found a stone fragment in his artifact collection that matched the tower behind you.”
“Oh, I am not surprised he found such a fragment. We had a tower exactly like this on every world we colonized.”
“So he probably never visited here…”
“I would like to think that he did, for his sake. On the other hand, I hope it has yet to be discovered, and that more remains of it than mere fragments.”
“Did you summon me because I touched the fragment?” Oona asked.
Lyoolee shook her head. “You summoned me, sweet child.”
“Because I realized the fragment matched the tower?”
“That would seem logical. And perhaps you were desperate to talk.”
“I have been, and not just because I need answers and training. I feel useless. Kyralla and Bishop both have projects to work on, real work that will help us if…once…Siv and Mitsuki get back with my dad. The new guy, Tekeru Jones, he’s trying to learn the weapons and sensor stations. All I can do is meditate, and that doesn't do anyone but me any good. And…”
She trailed off with a shrug, not sure how to express her frustrations. Then she remembered. She was supposed to be waiting for the priestess to connect with her, waiting until Lyoolee was rested.
“I’m sorry,” Oona said. “I didn’t mean to connect when you weren’t ready yet.”
Lyoolee stared into the distance a moment then nodded. “I had intended to connect with you soon.”
Oona sighed. “We can wait.”
Lyoolee shook her head. “The act of connecting itself takes a lot of energy. Now that we are together, it would be easier to continue.”
“So where do we start?”
Lyoolee gestured to a bench in the garden beside a small pond. Oona followed her and sat down, though she had no idea why they needed to sit since none of this was real.
“Oh, before I forget, Silky wanted me to ask you for the location of your homeworld.”
“Of course.” Lyoolee touched Oona’s forehead with her long, multi-jointed fingers.
A three-dimensional map appeared in front of Oona as if she were viewing information in a window on her HUD. It focused on a world within the spiral arm of the galaxy, highlighting it and providing coordinates. Oona thought she recognized the nearby stars, though the names were entirely unfamiliar to her.
“Silky should be able to figure it out if you describe it to him adequately.”
Oona studied the picture for a moment, her brow furrowed. “I’m not sure, but I think that’s deep in Krixis territory.”
“I would like to know more about the Krixis. From what little I have learned, it seems they achieved many of the same things the Benevolence did.”
“They can make their own star drives and…” Oona shrugged “…I don’t know all that much about them. All I can say is that they are our enemies, the rival civilization to ours. They’re basically tree people and can only communicate telepathically. And they considerate it their mission to prepare themselves for the arrival of evil beings who will come from the darkness.”
With a pleased look on her face, Lyoolee nodded. “It seems they heard the message I was broadcasting.”
“The message?”
“I was telepathically broadcasting a warning about the Shadraa. The Krixis obviously heard it, as did the Benevolence.”
“You think the Benevolence heard it because I’m a lot like you?”
“No, child,” the priestess replied. “I know that because of your technology. Along with the message traveled a stream of data for which I was a conduit. Any sufficiently receptive entity with the ability to decipher that data could gain at least limited access to the hypermind and unlock the secrets to all the technology we possessed, from constructing stardrives to harnessing the power of flux space.”
“Oh!” Oona’s mind raced through the implications of what Lyoolee had just said. “You…you mean our entire spacefaring civilization is the result of you broadcasting a message that the Benevolence picked up.”
“That seems to be the case.”
“I…I can’t believe it.” Oona ran her hands along her smooth scalp. “Everything we have comes from you?”
“That would be an oversimplification, child. Obviously, you had a civilization capable enough to build your Benevolence. Otherwise, the message would never have been received.”
“Why didn’t the Benevolence tell us? Why didn’t we know anything about your civilization? And why didn’t it warn us about the Shadraa?”
“I am afraid I cannot answer those questions, though I am sure your Benevolence must have withheld this information for a reason.”
Oona shook her head. “It just doesn’t seem possible.”
“Are you certain?” Lyoolee trailed her fingers along her antennae then touched the nubs on Oona’s head that were located in the same place. “How else should we explain you? A divergent human so much like a Numenaian, and not just any Numenaian but a priestess? And, judging from our facial structure, not just any priestess either. Unless you mistakenly believe that every Numenaian priestess looked like me.”
“I…I hadn’t even thought about it.”
Lyoolee stroked her chin. “Your Benevolence was an artificial intelligence, one even more advanced than any of the AIs we possessed. Nevertheless, it was a machine, and it was likely unable to fully access the hypermind. The designs of our technology are little more than machine code, but our histories are more complex than that. Ours was an oral civilization, our stories and histories spoken and then transferred telepathically into the hypermind.”
Oona felt as if her brain were beginning to swell.
“Creating a being like you would then make sense.” The priestess paused and smiled at her. “Do you see why?”
She chewed on her lip a moment and then nodded. "If I were enough like you, I'd be able to connect to the hypermind in ways the Benevolence couldn't. I could access all the knowledge your people possessed."
Lyoolee’s smile broadened. “Precisely.”
“Wow.” Oona let out a deep breath. “That’s a little overwhelming.”
Lyoolee chuckled. “That, I think, is understandable. Perhaps we should start anew with me explaining what I am and how my abilities work. Then we can address how you and I are different."
16
Oona Vim
“Our abilities aren’t the same?” Oona asked.
“Sweet child, you are to some extent a clone of me. That much is obvious. But you also have abilities I do not possess. For instance, I cannot connect with machines as you can. What you did with that small plasma pistol, I simply cannot do.”
“So…so you saw me kill Zetta?”
Desperate to save herself, Kyralla, and the others, Oona had accidentally overloaded a plasma snubbie. Instead of a small bolt, it had fired out a cannon-sized blast that had blown a hole straight through the bounty hunter.
“Because we connected before, I can sense the things that are happening around you,” Lyoolee said. “If you are not too far away.”
Oona couldn’t decide whether she was disturbed or comforted that the priestess could sense what she was doing. It made her feel less alone, but it also made her skin crawl, knowing someone was watching her all the time.
“I didn’t want to kill her,” Oona blurted.
“I am sorry for the pain that caused you,” Lyoolee said. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t help you then or when you were battling the pirates.”
Oona nodded her thanks. “So you can’t use your abilities to do any of the things I can do, like defeat passcodes and boost device battery life? Not that I can do those things reliably.”
“None of my people can do that,” Lyoolee replied. “But the Shadraa can.”
“They’re the bad guys, right?”
"Yes," she snarled, her lips tight, her fangs bared, her eyes narrowed. "They mercilessly wiped out my civilization
, and they would do the same to yours given a chance."
“Why do the Shadraa hate you so?”
“It is a long story, but suffice it to say, they are beings of tremendous evil. They need no motives beyond their desire for murder and destruction. There is nothing good or noble about them.”
Oona nodded along, but she doubted Lyoolee’s claim. The Shadraa might be alien, even cruel, but she couldn’t imagine a being that lived only for death and destruction. Even evil people believed that their ultimate goals were good and noble.
“So, do you think I was bioengineered…to have some of their powers, too?”
“Knowledge of the Shadraa may have inspired the Benevolence to design someone who could manipulate machines. But it could not have copied them directly. While humans and Numenaia have much in common genetically, the Shadraa are in no way similar to us. They are…” She shook her head. “Let us leave that terrible discussion for another day when we have less pressing matters.”
“There is a Terran variant called engers,” Oona told her. “They were genetically engineered to interact with machines, though not in the way I do. I know they’ve been around for over two thousand years.”
“So the Benevolence clearly worked on the concept for some time.”
“It makes sense that if I’m supposed to restore the Benevolence, machine powers would be necessary, right? Assuming I can survive the trial and can figure out how to reach Terra.”
“You do not know where it is?” Lyoolee asked with surprise.
Oona laughed. “Everyone knows where home is. The problem is no one can enter the Terran system without being destroyed by the Sentinels.”
“What are the Sentinels?”
“Hundreds of advanced, automated battleships that somehow survived the Tekk Plague. On top of that, all three habitable planets—Terra, Venus, and Mars—are said to have impenetrable force fields capable of surrounding the entire planet. No one has reached Terra since the Fall. After the first few decades, people gave up trying.”
“And as the Messiah, you are supposed to be able to reach Terra, yet you do not know how to get past these Sentinels or the force fields?”
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