Covenants: Savant (Hymn of the Multiverse Book 10)

by Terra Whiteman

  Several of the circles were locations of other past-clientele. The rogue planet Felor fell somewhere in the middle of their journey. The map then spanned out to include Khota-7 through 10. More circles. More past-clientele (unfortunately, most civs did not make it past type II without encountering a great filter; often entirely of their own making).

  Leid only watched me, waiting for the moment my face changed in revelation of what the map conveyed. But there was no revelation here; it was exactly as I’d thought.

  “They’ve been tracking us,” I said. “Their contract proposal is a rouse.”

  “Not a rouse,” corrected Adrial. “It doesn’t seem like their intentions are malevolent.”

  “Yet,” I added, incredulous. “It’d be foolish of them not to test the waters first.”

  Leid was glancing over the map, tapping her chin. “Notice the acceleration of their course past Khota-7. They’ve found a way to gain more ground over less time.”

  “They’ve made it their mission to find all the variables of the basewave algorithm,” I said. “Savant said they’ve already found Eversae Major’s. They know there are more, and we are living proof of that.”

  “Their expert system was programmed to seek out relics of the Quantum Wave Function,” mused Adrial. “It’s no doubt they would have stumbled across our footprint eventually. I don’t believe for one minute that the only obelisk they’ve found was from Atkehim.”

  “Not with all the post-client worlds they visited afterward,” agreed Leid. She looked at me, the violet sparks in her eyes having increased their intensity to the point of entirely consuming her irises. “The terms of the contract involve our counsel on how to best handle lesser, biotic sentient civilizations?”

  I nodded. “More specifically, to understand them better. They wish to cohabitate peacefully, form alliances.” And then it hit me. “… Like us.”

  “We’ve found our number one fan,” muttered Adrial. “Imitation is the highest form of flattery, after all.”

  Leid rolled her eyes. Adrial scoffed at her reaction.

  “That doesn’t concern you?” I asked, reeling. “In the least?”

  “No,” said Adrial. “I’m surprised you wouldn’t have expected this.” I opened my mouth, but he went on. “Consider the multiversal expanse, Yahweh. Then consider the likelihood that one civilization, among the millions that have come and gone, would eventually climb the progressive ladder far enough to understand universal functions, to a fractional degree, as we do.”

  I closed my mouth. Adrial smiled.

  “Not that unreasonable, is it? Is it therefore unreasonable to think they would want to know more?”

  “But…” I started. “But they’re machines.”

  “Of course they are,” he said, solemn. “In order to cover that type of ground and attain the millennia’s-worth of knowledge necessary, you couldn’t be anything but.”

  I hesitated with a response, looking toward Leid. She stared back at me, her expression imperceptible.

  “Are you prejudice against machines?” she asked me. Her tone didn’t relay judgment, only curiosity.

  “A bit,” I admitted. “But aren’t they prejudice against us as well? Every other machine race we’ve encountered do not respect biotic lives. They don’t believe them to be any more significant than scenic fauna. They leave ruinous paths in their wake.”

  “You’re not incorrect, in terms of what you’ve seen,” conceded Leid. “But Pedagogue seems different. They were created for a benevolent purpose, with a benevolent cause. You can’t deny them progression if it hurts no one in the process.”

  I thought back to the idolatry; to the Earth in ruin. “That has yet to be determined.”

  “Then determine it,” she ordered.

  “Let’s not forget what we are, either,” said Adrial. “We are Framer descendants. Framers were more machine than biotic, were they not?”

  I sighed. “By the end of it, yes.”

  “Only half,” objected Leid, side-eyeing Adrial.

  “Then we are half biotic and half machine. We should be open to represent both types of sentient life. Allying ourselves with a machine race, as I’ve said before, is beneficial to us. To them, it is paramount. Yahweh, you need to look past your prejudice. I didn’t even realize you had any to begin with.”

  I only nodded, glancing away. “I don’t feel comfortable absorbing their port material.”

  “As you shouldn’t,” said Leid. “Bring anything they give to you back here, and we’ll keep it archived until I can assign Pariah and Qaira to place a few more security measures into our conscious stream.”

  “When will that be?” I asked.

  “A few days, maybe. Depends on how long it takes Qaira to finish Zira’s assignments.”

  I watched, with dismay, as her expression switched from nothing to irritation at the mentioning of Zira’s name. “You’re too hard on him. Both of you.”

  Their surprise was mutual.

  “How do you mean?” demanded Adrial.

  “He’ll gut me for saying this; but I don’t care, because someone has to be in his corner for once. He’s gone on to label himself as the ‘Bastard Guardian of the Enemy’. He’s benched more often than Qaira, for Heaven’s sake. Qaira.”

  “He isn’t benched,” said Leid, crinkling her nose in confusion. “He’s on Sort because there’s nothing else for him to do right now. He isn’t a specialist, and because of that we can’t assign him to certain things.”

  “The multiverse knows I’d bench Qaira all the time, if he wasn’t so fucking useful,” muttered Adrial. “And if I wouldn’t have to hear the loud, obnoxious sex noises you two make reverberating through Enigmus every time he is here.”

  “Okay,” said Leid, frowning. “You’re being highly inappropriate.”

  “Oh, I’m being inappropriate?”

  I shifted uncomfortably, trying to change the subject. “Then someone needs to tell Zira this is all a misunderstanding.”

  “Thank you for bringing that to our attention,” said Leid. “We’ll talk to him.”

  “Do it lightly,” I cautioned. “And try not to mention I’ve said anything, if that’s possible.”

  “Are you still reneging the contract, then?” asked Adrial.

  “No,” I said. “I’ll continue. Thank you both for your counsel, and I’m sorry for my… outburst earlier.”

  Leid smiled. “We deserved it. You were only being honest. We’ll afford more resources to you from now on.”

  I nodded, concluding our discussion and receding through euxodia’s doorway. I didn’t plan to return to Earth just yet. Leid and Adrial had given me a lot to think about, after all. It was time to change tactics, and perhaps re-evaluate my character.

  7

  MEHRIT

  I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING, FEELING EMPTY. There was an acrid taste at the back of my throat, and my heart throbbed as if it were clenched in a fist. For a few minutes I sat up in bed and tried to control my breathing, while hot and cold tingles drifted up and down my back. I’d never felt this way before, and it frightened me.

  I was small, and scared.

  My eye insisted something was amiss. Nothing seemed like it—Ema was humming and cooking breakfast, Biri still asleep in the hammock; typical morning fare—but the glitched eye continued to pound my heart and leave my stomach in knots. I wished I could turn this horrible thing off. After everything that had happened over the past few days, I was more than happy to return to a quiet life as a mechanic. Wishful thinking.

  The Vestals never came by that morning. According to the neighbors, no one in Nascent had seen them. The cadence of Wereda was… off. Yesterday’s events hung forebodingly over the camp, heavy and blighted like the bruised, morning overcast. I found myself mesmerized while watching the street from the entrance of our dwelling; a small reprieve from the non-stop rapid heartbeat and nausea. When I refused breakfast, Ema was cross.

  “You need to eat. You barely ate yester
day,” she insisted.

  “Leave me, I don’t feel well.”

  My mother frowned with sympathy. “At least drink some tea. And take some scrap with you for a lunch vendor.”

  I surrendered to her demands, but only took a few sips from the cup she’d handed to me. Everything tasted wrong, and my tongue tingled, nearly numb. Biri sensed my mood and tried to make me laugh by wearing his underwear on his head. It worked—made me smile, at least. But his preciousness only sharpened the edge of the knife that was my guilt. Abel’s words last night had left a searing imprint on my mind:

  ‘He will be of age soon and taken to the mines, where he will die early and, for what, so that people like you can live simply?’

  I shivered and left my seat, searching for my pack. In just a few minutes I would set out for the job I’d had for three years; until yesterday I’d thought it meant something. It still did, but the meaning had rotted like day-old food, left out in the heat. How could I act like nothing had happened? How would I get through today, and the next?

  As I kissed Ema and Biri goodbye, pretending nothing was amiss, my eye informed me that the transport drone had adjusted its pick-up coordinates by two rows over. While I was relieved that I didn’t have to wait in Nascent’s tech row, risking eye-contact with Kwame or Adella, it was very peculiar that, after three seasons, the pick-up stop had suddenly changed.

  And it’d been three minutes early. I’d spotted it hovering low in front of a vendor, the soft luminescence of the underside casting a bright circle against the dark, cracked pavement. I broke into a light jog, ignoring the tightness of my chest and the fluttering of my heart.

  Inside, there were four other Eyes. Typically the mood was somewhat light; even if I didn’t recognize any of the faces, chatter would have already commenced by the middle-stop that was mine. But no one said anything, their attentions cast inward. All of their halos were red.

  And what color do you think yours is?

  I, too, kept my attention on the floor.

  The colors of our halos don’t mean what you think they do.

  But what did they really mean? Abel had never said. There was a significance to them, though. There had to be, or else our eyes wouldn’t show us them. I regretted not asking more last night. I’d been too tired and weak, mentally and physically, to understand what I needed to know, let alone register the answers. Hindsight could be cruel sometimes.

  Again, I was the last to leave the transport drone. The trip was taking a while, and during it I sat in the corner of the dingy cabin, listening to the thump-thump-thump in my chest. I kept eyeing the door as dark thoughts spun circles in my mind. Did Pedagogue know? Were they taking me in for processing?

  Twice, I reached out toward the latch on the door, but stopped myself at the last minute. My eye was sensing danger, but the paranoia was fueled only by me. By the time the drone slowed to a stop, my legs were trembling so hard that I had to cross them; my teeth chattered and so I clenched my jaw. I thought of Ema, and Biri, and what would happen to them if I never came home.

  The door slid open and I squinted against the muddy light of the outside, even the dim, bleak sky was at first too bright for my shade-accustomed eyes. The scenery was dreadfully familiar. I’d already known this was where I would end up.

  On shaky legs I stepped out of the transporter, planting my feet on the clear, nodal-enmeshed road that led toward the reflective spires and wing-like fans of the Pedagogue central facility. Before I could even take a step forward the drone soared off, leaving me stranded with a growing headache and a terrible sense of impending doom.

  I was so worked up that even my eye forewent any further warnings and attempted to soothe me, sending warm, sedating tingles down my back and over my neck, forcing me to relax my shoulders. This was done for its best interests, as the fluttering of my pulse and the hyperventilation would eventually make me faint. Yet another clue that my eye worked for its own gain. I was its instrument; for what purpose, I didn’t know.

  Calmer now, I watched the same two Pedagogue guards approach from the facility campus. I wondered if they were the only two occupants of this massive place. Specks of light glinted off their reflective, head-to-toe armor, causing tiny pricks of pain behind my eyes. Their gaits were slow, powerful and synchronized. They did not seem to be in a hurry to apprehend me, nor did their posture represent any urgency or caution. This was speculation at best—I did not know how Pedagogue might react to a perceived threat. To them I might have been just an insignificant pest already cornered, so why hurry?

  The guards stopped several paces in front of me, saying nothing. The silence grew unsettling, but then I noticed something strange about their armor. There was some kind of…animated fuzz on the surface, and when I concentrated hard enough I saw that it wasn’t fuzz, but something else. Something blurry, like a coat of moving parts. Focusing too long made my temples sting, and I grimaced.

  “Follow us,” said the guard on the right, and I wondered why it took him so long to say something so simple.

  “Why am I here?” I asked. A very bold move, but fright had stripped my censoring.

  We were halfway along the winding path before I was given an answer. “Pedagogue requires your talents.” And that was it; nothing more from them.

  Take my talents back, I pleaded silently. I don’t want them anymore.

  They marched me to same place as before. My eyes rose in hope that I might see the top of the spear this time, but no such luck; only the many lines of drones flying to and from their fan-like hive. Their mass automation caused a low-wave hum that I felt in the center of my chest, tickling the base of my throat. I didn’t remember this sensation last time I’d been here.

  I kept my eyes ahead as we walked through the dim, tube-lined hall, trying to keep my gaze away from the glass walls of the rooms on the right.

  I wondered which one I would enter this time.

  I wondered who would be in there.

  It was the same room as before, and dread crept up along my spine as I thought of who I’d have to condemn to processing now. All of them were good people, Abel had assured me. Good people, only wanting to spread the truth about Pedagogue. But the truth hadn’t been spread to me. Abel never told me what it was he thought Pedagogue really was.

  Yet, even despite that, I couldn’t help but look at the guards now in a newer, darker light. My eye had turned critical. If these were God’s technological instruments, assembled and sent from Heaven, why did I feel so… scared? Why did this place feel so bleak?

  I wanted to turn and run away, down the hall, out the doors and back onto the street. Instead, I walked into the room. The guards followed me this time.

  My eyes finally dared to rise and meet whoever I’d been sent to see. A crowd of people, lined around the long, rectangular table, stared back at me. Four of them were Vestals, still dressed in their modest, blood-stained robes and prayer masks. They must have been apprehended last night, at the scene of the artifact. That explained their absence this morning.

  There were five other Weredans, though I did not know why they were here. I sensed the closest one and realized they all were witnesses to yesterday’s event.

  Were the Vestals on trial? Did Pedagogue think they’d been responsible for disturbing the artifact?

  At that thought, a pang of guilt hit my stomach. But I said nothing, waiting for the guards to send instructions to my eye. Nothing.

  I waited some more.

  Then some more.

  And finally I looked toward the closest guard, towering over me. Something was tickling the inside of my head. Memories of the events at the artifact were recalled against my will. I watched them like an outside observer, bleary-eyed, stiff with horror, unflinching against the bright, red halos of the room’s occupants. Their memories were being roused as well, and we all were standing once again within that blood-soaked terrace.

  This was not a job. This was a mass-interrogation. They must have saw me there while pr
obing witnesses’ memories. How this was possible, I didn’t know. If Pedagogue was able to tap into our thoughts and memories, why employ Eyes at all?

  We were in one of the Vestal’s minds now; the other witnesses had seen nothing of importance to the guards. They laid my own memories over hers, and the scene froze with my hand outstretched, eyes wide in horror, about to scream a warning to the crowd surrounding the Artifact.

  And then the memory faded, and I was back in the present. The other witnesses stood around, confused, but the Vestals and guards both stared intently at me.

  The room began to spin as panic wracked my body, the invisible fist clenched even harder around my sternum. I thought of the prisoner Eye I’d seen here last time, cuffed to a seat, hopelessness in his tired eyes. My feverish mind replaced him with me. That was surely where this was going.

  Both guards stepped toward me.

  “Please come with us,” said the one on the left.

  I barely heard them, dizzy with terror. Their armor began to pulse rhythmically with my heart. The fuzzy coating I’d seen blurring across their armors’ surface grew sharper, needle-like. The guards started, stilted, and then their heads began to jerk.

  Excitation built inside me; anticipation, fear—I felt like I would explode.

  I dropped and curled into a ball as the horrible sounds of warping and grating metal filled the room. It was followed by shattered glass and numerous thuds; the sounds of bodies hitting the floor. Then, silence.

  I stayed in this position with my eyes shut tightly, listening to my heart thundering in my ears. Finally, I dared to uncurl and open my eyes.

  Blood, everywhere.

  There were two clumps of smoldering, black metal—not unlike the ores from the mines—where the guards had stood moments ago. Behind them, two of the glass panes had shattered. I turned to see the bodies of the witnesses strewn across the floor, blood pooling beneath them. There was blood on the walls behind them, like someone had splattered red paint everywhere. Little black spikes protruded from both the bodies and the walls, covering the room in a glittery, light-reflective sheen.