“She’s her usual crazy self.”
“Crazier than you, indeed. She is not accompanying you on this mission?”
“No, she’s…taking care of some business in Sextans Dwarf.”
It was impossible to miss the abrupt darkening of Eren’s eyes during the rapid-fire back and forth, but Alex was more interested in the container, its hidden compartments and their contents than the Anaden’s personal demons. “You’re telling me the anarchs communicate with one another via carrier pigeon?”
Eren shrugged. “I don’t know precisely what you mean, but I think I get the gist, and I’m insulted. So is Felzeor.”
“Insulted. Yes.” Felzeor nuzzled Caleb’s nose.
“But why not send only the Reor slab in the container? Why did the Volucri need to accompany it?” Caleb shot her a disapproving look, presumably because she hadn’t addressed Felzeor directly.
Felzeor angled its talons around on Caleb’s arm to face her. “I was the navigator. Granted, navigation wasn’t so necessary this trip. But often, deliveries are made to planets, and the capsule can’t operate inside planetary atmospheres—the Zero Drive doesn’t work correctly in the thick air. In those cases, I eject from it and carry the package to its destination. Other times, course corrections or various maneuvers need to be performed—such as bringing the capsule into your airlock, for instance.”
Now the bird did have her attention. “And you can drive the capsule?”
“Enough. It is configured to allow for control via my foreclaws.”
“Impressive. What about space stations? It feels as if all we’ve seen so far are space stations.” And a hidden Reor stellar system. And the Kat homeworld. But no need to overshare.
“Alas. If I am on a covert mission, I usually have to orbit a station at a distance until my recipient comes to retrieve me.”
Caleb seemed horrified. “What if you get captured? How do you prevent your package from being seized and you being taken prisoner?”
Eren cleared his throat. “If the capsule is successfully broken into by someone other than the sender or recipient, it self-destructs.”
“But wouldn’t that kill Felzeor, or any Volucri who happened to be inside?”
Felzeor stood tall on Caleb’s arm, beak lifted proudly. “Death is a risk I accept, as do all anarchs.” A pause. “Except Eren. If things go badly for him, he wakes up in a cushioned bed with a hangover. Like he does most mornings, excepting the cushions.”
Eren’s smirk might be the first truly kind expression Alex had seen the Anaden display in the time she’d known him. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty, or that mouth of yours would get you into trouble you couldn’t get out of.”
“I know.”
“Good. All right. Let’s get you situated and back on your way.”
Caleb frowned. “Must you leave so soon?”
Felzeor tottered back and forth on each foot upon Caleb’s arm. “I must. I am a resistance fighter, and I have important duties. Also, Thelkt has promised me baked apple tarts on my return.”
“Well, we can’t delay you from baked apple tarts.” Caleb gazed affectionately at the bird. “It was quite the pleasure to meet you, Felzeor. I hope our paths cross again.”
“As do I. Preferably on a planet somewhere, where we can fly about—or I can fly about, and you can chase me.”
Caleb chuckled. “It’s a date.” He stretched his arm out, and the Volucri hopped off and flitted to the entrance of the capsule.
Eren reached down and removed the translator, placed it in its holder and replaced the false bottom. “I’ll program Plousia as your destination and Thelkt as the recipient. Fly safe, my friend.”
Felzeor cooed and climbed inside. Eren gently closed the door and spent a minute typing commands into the top panel, then carried the capsule to the airlock.
Alex followed along behind. “It can power itself up and launch itself from here?”
He knelt and checked it over. “Don’t worry, it won’t blast your airlock. It’ll basically float out into open space and fire from there.”
She stared at the compact, innocuous looking little capsule. “Zero Drive, huh?”
“That’s what they say.” He stood. “We’re ready.”
They moved back to the cabin and repeated the arrival process in reverse. She watched out the viewport as the capsule drifted away a short distance. There was a brief flare of…something…and it was gone.
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask again. The anarchs make deliveries by carrier pigeon?”
Eren adopted a condescending scowl. “Objectively, how is Felzeor piloting the capsule any different from you piloting this ship?”
“Well….”
“He’s a bird?”
She shrugged.
“Like I said, no different. The capsules are perfect for the Volucri. If the vessel were any larger, it would be too easily detected. If you make them Anaden-sized, then you have to build in a more robust life support system and personal comforts. Volucri aren’t nearly so high-maintenance or spoiled. Also, I’m told the cost to build a Zero Drive increases exponentially with size. They want to help, and this is one way they can.”
Had Eren accused her of being speciesist?
In fairness, you are being speciesist. Simply because we’ve never met an avian species intelligent enough to operate complex machinery, it does not mean they cannot exist. In fact, they self-evidently do. I found Felzeor to be both delightful and inspiring.
Wow, Valkyrie. Consider me chastised.
She smiled blithely, as she was clearly outnumbered. “Okay. Taking everything you’ve said at face value, what’s the Volucri’s story?”
“They’re native to the Naraida’s homeworld, where the two species lived cooperatively for millennia. As part of the Naraida’s elevation to Accepted Species by the Directorate, the Volucri were granted the status of Wildlife Pet. The Directorate acknowledged they exhibited some degree of intelligence but decided it didn’t rise to the level of ‘actualized sentience’ needed to receive an Accepted Species designation.”
Caleb snorted. Ever since Felzeor’s departure, he'd looked as mopey as a kid ordered to eat his vegetables. “They were wrong.”
“Oh, certainly. Truthfully, I suspect the Volucri saw the despotic manner in which the Directorate took over the Novoloume and Naraida planets and made the strategic decision to play dumb. It’s mostly worked out for them. As Wildlife Pets their rights are restricted, but in return far less is expected of them, which frees them up to be sneaky. In addition to piloting the capsules, they act as spies planetside and, when they’re well situated, on stations.”
That at least did make sense. “Are all the Volucri anarchs?”
“No, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a larger percentage of their population is than any other species. They have an inborn appreciation for freedom. Probably comes with the wings.”
Eren had been fiddling with the case he’d taken from the capsule while he talked, and she gestured to it now. “So what’s our prize?”
He popped it in some kind of reader he’d materialized out of his discreet but omnipresent hip pack, and a stream of symbols appeared in the air above it.
“Good news. The chances of your plan succeeding just went from zero to infinitesimal. This is the access code to unlock the Machim data server. You’ll still have to break the encryption on the data you want, but this will get you to the data.”
32
SIYANE
ANDROMEDA GALAXY
LGG REGION VI
* * *
EREN WATCHED HIS HOSTS put away the plates from dinner. He knew so little about them. This ship, their odd food and odd tech all suggested a society existed out there, somewhere, which had arisen completely separate from and unknown to Anadens. It was advanced enough to traverse the stars and work adroitly in quantum technology. SAIs were not only allowed but seemingly treated as free, independent life forms, and he had to assume their civilization had no
t collapsed as a result of it.
Where had they come from? More relevantly, why were they picking a fight with the Directorate, and why now?
Not being privy to most of the Directorate’s initiatives, it was possible this mysterious civilization had recently been or was on the cusp of being discovered. This had to be the case, for them to be so eager to risk their lives against impossible odds.
He knew so little about them…but he’d come to believe they were sincere, capable and brave, if not particularly prudent. Maybe they were trustworthy, too.
He smiled in thanks as Alex brought fresh wine to the table and they rejoined him. He let Caleb fill his glass—he was already contemplating how to finagle his own supply of the stuff—and leaned back in his chair. “The last time I visited your ship, you asked me how I broke away from the Idoni integral.”
“You said it was a personal question and deflected.”
“It was and still is. But you’re both going to get yourselves killed tomorrow, so why not? To understand, though, you need to appreciate how an integral impacts one’s consciousness and psyche. So if you want the story, you need the whole story. And after you hear it, you may regret asking.”
“I’m sure we won’t. Please.”
He stared at them for several seconds, then began.
“I was at this fete back in 6043. Typical orgy—figuratively and literally—of excess thrown by one of the Idoni elassons. If it had an ostensible purpose, I never knew it.” Garish fuchsia strobes had colored the air above circular tables overflowing with expensive hors d’oeuvres and fountains spewing potent drinks. Why did he remember the color of the lights?
“So as the hour begins to grow late and the spirits and hypnols have flowed beyond all propriety, I get invited to a private suite upstairs for a more intimate party with five of my closest strangers. I’m just there for the revelry, so I’m all in.
“After twenty minutes of dosing up and pretending to get friendly with one another, some servants bring these two aliens into the suite and leave them there.
“None of us had seen the species before, but they were exquisite: slender Anatype bodies with translucent skin that was warm, almost hot to the touch. Of course they didn’t speak Communis, and, beyond a sense that they weren’t animalistic and an impression they were sentient, I can’t say their intelligence level. I don’t know if they understood what was happening to them, or even understood what we were. I don’t know if they were male or female, or if their species had such distinctions.”
Alex looked perplexed, so he backed up. “Sexual experiences with aliens are rarely straightforward, so in and of itself, not being able to identify gender wasn’t anything unusual.”
She arched an eyebrow, but if she was judging him she’d better strap in.
“I was exceptionally high—we all were—and I can’t sit here today and say I didn’t walk into that suite intending to go through with a night of deplorable, blissful acts.
“But one of the aliens fixated on me. They had these pure, pupil-less silver eyes, and I could see my own distorted reflection in them. What I saw was a monster gazing back at me…as though the distortion in the lens had revealed the darker reality of my godsdamned soul. And I’m not speaking metaphorically.”
He cleared his throat roughly. Recounting the events proved more perturbing than he’d expected. It was too long ago to matter…and too important to ever forget.
“So I balked. I made excuses about a prior arrangement and fled the suite. I don’t think any of the other Idoni were sober enough for my departure to register.”
“You didn’t try to stop the others?”
The horror tainting Alex’s voice didn’t really surprise him; a century later, he was feeling a bit horrified himself. But he’d been different then. Naïve and weak. Also stupid.
“And get myself detained, tanked and mind-wiped? No. I wandered the fete for another three hours, trying to get high enough fast enough to pass out.” At some point it had finally worked, and he’d woken up the next evening on a cot in the anteroom alongside a few dozen other guests.
“A month later, I found out the species had been Eradicated. Following an initial evaluation, the Directorate had determined their only usefulness, if any, would be as pleasure slaves. A dozen ‘specimens’ were provided to the Idoni Primor for consideration, and the two I met that night were part of the sample group. After…whatever she did with them, she decided they didn’t meet her lofty standards and weren’t worth the trouble of domesticating, and the Directorate followed her recommendation.
“Per protocol, their cities were demolished by a Machim formation then their home planet harvested for resources by Theriz cultivators. The ones who had been brought in for evaluation were experimented on by Erevna scientists then euthanized.”
He took a very, very long sip of wine, on the off chance it had the power to magically cleanse away the filth which continued to linger in the depths of his conscience. He apparently radiated angst and self-pity, because they didn’t press or berate him, and when his glass was empty Caleb quietly refilled it.
It took another sip before he worked up the nerve to continue. “Something glitched in my mind when I found out. I couldn’t decide if it was guilt over how they’d been used—over how I’d almost used them—or horror at the realization that a creature I’d touched had seen their entire species killed before being killed themselves. I got stuck in the loop for…a while. A year, maybe.
“See, the nefarious trick of the integral is how it weeds out stray, unwelcome thoughts and ideas. It’s subtle, so much so most of the time you don’t notice the weight of sixty-four billion minds nudging your own toward ‘correctness.’
“But the kernel of revulsion never got fully erased for me. The integral repeatedly weakened it, but it kept growing back. Eventually I started nurturing it, actively fighting against the integral’s whispers.”
He leaned forward and dropped his elbows on the table. “And doing that got me flagged for ‘rehabilitation.’ I was ordered to come in for special treatment. But it’s not treatment—it’s a mind-wipe. They analyze your neural structure to determine what’s gone bad then tweak your genetics and incipient neural mapping to eliminate the flaw. A new you is awakened, but it’s not you anymore.
“So, seeing as I was going to die anyway—for the last time—I decided to try to escape. I knew a hypnol dealer who skirted the edges of allowable product and went to him for something that could destroy the integral node in my brain. He delivered, and I rented a room, locked myself in and took twice the prescribed amount.
“The next three days were agony—like eternal damnation in the Phlegethon river of fire. My brain was burning me alive from the inside. My thoughts were delirious, incoherent. My dreams were worse.”
Alex glanced away, her expression darkening. He must have hit a nerve. “Then, at last, there was silence. True silence, which turned out to be something I’d never experienced in my life. It was nearly as terrifying as severing the integral link had been, for a long time.”
He shrugged. “The burnout would have resembled a null incident to the integral, and they would’ve taken the opportunity to do their tweaking before regenesis. There’s presumably another ‘me’ running around now—a different, better version of me.”
Alex straightened up and blinked, as if shaking off the same spell lingering over him. “If you broke away on your own, how did you come to join the anarchs?”
He exhaled, grateful to have gotten through the worst of the story without curling up into a weeping ball on the floor. “It was a Praesidis, actually.”
Caleb looked at him sharply and leaned forward, and Eren suppressed an instinctive shudder. Inquisitor or not, intentionally or not, the man exuded danger when provoked. “Wait—there are Praesidis anarchs?”
Eren held up a palm to ward off the man’s intensity bringing him closer. “Don’t get too excited. I can count them on one hand. But there are a few, yes. That’s why
I gave you the smallest benefit of the doubt back on the Administration station.”
Caleb took in the new information. “What happened?”
“I’d been running spare tech and hypnols and generally trying to stay off the radar and alive. No integral meant no regenesis and no new body. If I died, that was it. Denouement. One day I was on the Sculptor Arx smooth-talking this hypnol trader when a Praesidis walked into the shop. I tried to slip away, but the trader made a scene over how our transaction wasn’t complete. I figured the line had finally run out and resigned myself to the inevitable. But—”
Alex interrupted him. “Why did you think this meant the end?”
“I’d managed to cobble together a neural layer which mimicked the Idoni integral on casual contact with another Idoni—barely, and I’ve got a far better one now, but it functioned. As for the rest of the Dynasties, so long as I looked right and acted right and said the right things, they assumed I was in the fold.
“Praesidis, though? Their diati allows them to sense the absence of an integral field. All they need is line of sight to the person.”
Caleb again straightened up in interest. “All the Praesidis have diati? Not solely the Inquisitors?”
Eren nodded while Alex refilled his glass for the…he’d lost count. The gaps in their knowledge were random and perplexing, almost as much so as the things they did know.
“Mind you, the Inquisitors are blessed with quite the overabundance of it, but they all carry at least a token amount. Any lineage that loses it entirely is culled. In any event, instead of killing me, the Praesidis woman asked me to lunch. We danced the dance and tested one another out, and I learned I wasn’t alone. There were other Anadens who had broken away, from all the Dynasties, and many of them were working with individuals from other Accepted Species to fight the Directorate. To resist.”
He sounded more enthusiastic than he’d intended, and genuinely so. In the aftermath, spilling his soul felt uncomfortably cathartic.
Aurora Resonant: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 3) Page 23