She arched an eyebrow at Nisi, but he simply motioned to the drape. “Let us take a stroll.”
His penchant for dramatic gestures had annoyed her from the start, but the grand reveals they tended to lead to often proved useful, so she refrained from sighing and followed him out.
The building they’d arrived in was set off a short distance from a settlement. The structures all shared the same architectural style and ranged from modest huts to expansive, multi-wing buildings. None stretched higher than a single tall story, but many included rooftop balconies. The village was simple, possibly primitive; it was also highly ordered and meticulously clean.
Dozens of the creatures moved among the spaces in between the buildings. As they did so, several stopped and raised their front limbs toward them—or more likely, at Nisi. He acknowledged the greetings by bringing a knifed hand to his chin. He didn’t approach the village, though, instead guiding her to the right, where a savannah grassland stretched to the horizon beneath a toffee sky.
“Where are we?”
“A very, very long way from home.”
“I have been a very long way from home since I arrived in Amaranthe.”
He chuckled. “So you have. I call the planet Livad, but to the Hoan it simply is. It lies some 224 megaparsecs from Solum, beyond the Local Galactic Group, beyond Laniakea, in a galaxy without a name deep in the Shapley Supercluster.”
“I was under the impression the Anadens’ exploration had only just begun to extend beyond the LGG.”
“You are correct. The Directorate does not know of this place, and Zeus willing it never will.”
Now she did sigh. The setting was pleasant and the inhabitants suitably unusual, but on the other side of the teleportation gate the most complex and ambitious mission of her career drew closer by the hour. “Now is when I ask how it is you know of it.”
He stretched out an arm and ran his palm along the tops of the tall blades of grass. “Caleb has told you of my true past?”
“I’ve heard the highlights, yes.”
“Or the lowlights, depending on one’s perspective. This is where the diati brought me after I fell—after my son betrayed me. It doesn’t perceive distances in the same way we do, and it only knew it needed to get me somewhere both safe and outside of the Anaden empire’s boundaries. It obviously knew of the Hoan, as I suspect it knows of every sentient species in the universe, on some intrinsic level.
“So little diati remained within me following the attack, it required all its energy to transport me here. I arrived unconscious, bleeding out, over half the bones of my body broken, and in its exhaustion it could do nothing more than keep my heart beating.”
He paused to gaze back over his shoulder toward the village. “I’m sure the Hoan appear primitive to your eyes, and in many respects they are. In others, however, they will surprise you. Their medical treatments did not originate in a lab, but they are rather effective. They took this strange, incoherent being who had materialized out of nowhere under their care. They ensured I did not bleed out, succumb to infection or die from any of a number of ailments that should have killed me. Eventually, the diati regained its strength and mended what the Hoan could not.
“I stayed here for a time—decades. I learned their language and many of their ways. My body soon healed, but my mind took a fair bit longer to recover. When I felt it had finally done so, I instructed the diati to return me to the empire.
“I was wrong, as psychologically I remained a tortured disaster. When I realized this, I stole a starship and fled once more, albeit this time under my own power. But that is another story.”
In the distance, movement caught her attention. One of the Hoan galloped across the savannah with astonishing speed, each stride carrying it some ten meters distance. Abruptly it disappeared beneath the grass, then leapt upward to soar into the sky. Thirty meters? Forty? It landed almost beyond her sight and continued on.
“Impressive, aren’t they?”
“Why are we here, Sator?”
“I visit the Hoan too rarely, but I have been thinking about the time I spent here often of late. Since your people arrived in Amaranthe, since they have accomplished great feats that defy their apparent evolutionary maturity while displaying a level of empathy and…kindness that I thought species inevitably grew out of when they went to the stars.”
“Thank you.”
He stopped and stared at her oddly. “Yes, I suppose it was a compliment.” His lips quirked, and he began walking again. “I look at you—all of you, who look so like us—and I realize that we Anadens have been standing still for a long time. It makes me wonder at what point it was that we made the wrong choice, took the wrong path.”
“What if it wasn’t a single decision, but instead a series of influences compounded over hundreds or thousands of years?”
“That scenario would be easier to stomach, wouldn’t it? But no, I suspect it was a specific choice. And though I wish I could say the choice occurred after I had been deposed by my son and the Directorate had begun its march toward tyranny, I fear it was not. I fear it was my fault.”
This degree of honesty from Nisi made Miriam uncomfortable if not outright suspicious. She was not his therapist, and after he’d taken such great pains to create a persona of wise and sage leadership dispensed from on high, she couldn’t imagine why he wanted to tear it all down in a single conversation.
“Sator—”
“Thank you for sharing with my analysts the voluminous caches of data you’ve gained access to. They will be years at cataloguing it all, as they do not enjoy the advantages your people do, but thank you nonetheless.”
She took the sudden shift of topic in stride; if anything, she was grateful for it. “Advantages? You mean our Prevos.”
“Your Prevos, your Melanges, your stand-alone unshackled SAIs and whatever other dozen varieties of synthetic-enhanced life you not only allow to exist, but grant…autonomy.”
She smiled blithely. “Yes, they are valued members of our team.”
“There was a time in Anaden history when a segment of our citizens argued in favor of granting SAIs greater rights, of treating them as sapient life forms rather than mere machines. The Asterions, as they called themselves, advocated passionately for their cause.”
“And you?”
He laughed dryly. “We were experiencing the greatest days the Anaden empire had ever seen. We believed—I believed—we had reached the pinnacle of evolution, that ours was the organic form perfected. We were the wisest, the most enlightened, the most skilled and intelligent beings the universe was capable of producing. The notion that machines, programmed mechanical tools we had glued together and plugged into a power socket, deserved something approaching equality was ludicrous. The harsh truth beneath the arrogance, however, was that we were afraid of the machines, and for this reason above all such a step must not be allowed to take place.
“If there was a moment when it all went wrong, I fear it was this moment. Yet even now, knowing all I know, I’m not certain I could have brought myself to make a different choice then. Even now, I see your chaotic hodgepodge of organic and synthetic and I wait for you to fall to the machines. How is it that they do not rule you? They are smarter than you, more knowledgeable than you, better than you in every measurable way.”
She couldn’t help but smirk. “They aren’t better than us, Sator—they are simply faster at solving math equations.”
Again with the odd stare.
“Have you ever spoken to an Artificial—to a synthetic life form of any kind? Had a normal, ordinary conversation with one? Asked it what it wants out of life, or what it dreams about in quiet interludes?”
He shook his head. “I can’t say as I have.”
“Perhaps you should.” She deliberately steered them into an arc designed to soon return them to the hut and the teleportation gate and Tarach and her husband and her daughter and her troops and the mission. “At your leisure, of course. For now,
let me tell you what our hodgepodge of life forms has helped us learn from those voluminous caches of data, and what it means for our joint cause.
“We’ve focused on the Primors, because victory is impossible while they hold power. Due to their unique requirements—their age and the volume of memory accompanying it, the special demands of weaving and continuously maintaining integrals for billions of consciousnesses, and so on—the Primors can only undergo regenesis at three predesignated locations. All are unique, and none overlap. Does this sound correct to you?”
He nodded cautiously. “It does.”
“Thank you. Before I commit to destroying the Directorate permanently, I need to know a few things. Will the average Anaden far removed from the machinations of the Directorate suffer mental or physical harm if their Primor dies and does not reawaken? What will happen to the integrals, and what will it mean for the masses?”
“You care about minimizing the suffering of my people?”
“Sator, you are the one who called us empathetic and kind.”
“So I did. No one will keel over dead upon the removal of their Primor, if that’s your concern. While I can’t be certain as it’s never occurred before, I anticipate the more active features of the integrals to gradually wither and fade away. In theory an elasson could attempt to exert authority over their integral, but I doubt any of the Primors will have granted even their most favored progeny the degree of power needed for an attempt to succeed.”
“But the integrals won’t fail altogether?”
“No. They should cease to assert any behavior-altering effects within a couple of weeks, maybe days. But the underlying structure will remain in place, so long as the hardware to support it continues to be included in individuals’ cybernetics, and the other changes will not affect anyone’s ability to undergo regenesis.”
“And if we destroy all the regenesis labs the Primors use, what of the Dynasty members who would normally undergo regenesis at those locations?”
“If they are not killed in the incursions, in the aftermath alternative arrangements can be made. A few lives may be lost, but the number is…acceptable.”
She would be the final arbiter of what losses were acceptable, but she recognized the moral and emotional weight his endorsement of such a number carried. “Understood. Will there be any other effects I’m not aware of? Anything I haven’t anticipated?”
His hands clasped stoically behind his back as the hut containing the teleportation gate came into view. “Yes. The progeny will be lost and adrift. Without the integrals reinforcing their focus and purpose, they will begin to question both.”
“Sator, this is not a bad thing. Humans spend years struggling to figure out what they want to do with their lives, then often revisit the question at multiple points in the course of living it. It’s in our nature.”
“Commandant, I’m sure I need not remind you that we are not Human.”
“No. But perhaps when this is over, you will become a bit more so.”
He glanced away, and she allowed him a few seconds of solemn introspection before pushing onward. “When the time comes to make our move, we will need to pull the orbital protection from the posts. Since it appears Vigil never had the locations of any post other than Alpha, I believe it’s a reasonable risk. We need the ships.”
He nodded assent. “With your full fleet at your disposal, will you have enough?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Their adiamene hulls, arcalasers, synthetic and pseudo-synthetic pilots and adaptable, flexible tactics were powerful assets, but were they enough to overwhelm the brute force of Anaden defenses stronger than any they had yet faced?
“The Kats have agreed to cover six of the regenesis labs, as space stations are best suited to their skillset. Taking into account their assistance, it becomes an uncomfortably close calculation. A new contingent of ships will arrive from home in six days, but I dare not wait for them. While we twiddle our thumbs, the Directorate will be acting.”
“I agree. The time to act—the pivotal moment for which I have spent millennia preparing?” He breathed out deliberately through his nose. “It feels as if it is upon us.”
“If we move with the resources currently on hand, we will be spread extremely thin, leaving zero margin for error or surprise. We can do our best to guard against those occurring, but I confess I don’t like the risks.”
They reached the entrance to the hut, where the hanging woven fibers swayed placidly. Nisi’s hand rose to part the fibers, then stopped as he regarded her thoughtfully. “What if I can get you more ships?”
27
TARACH
ANARCH POST DELTA
* * *
MIA SCRUTINIZED HER REFLECTION in the mirror. Were the curls really supposed to spiral in opposite directions away from the part like that? It looked odd, bordering on silly. She called up memories of Anadens she’d seen wearing the allegedly fashionable hairstyle and dubiously compared them to her appearance.
It matches. You’ve recreated the nuances of the arrangement precisely.
She couldn’t bring herself to adopt Meno’s certitude. I suppose this must be correct. But it’s so baroque.
The front third of her hair was slicked down to tightly frame her face and fall razor-straight in front of her shoulders. The back two-thirds was pinned up in a mane of the offending curls. She poked at one of the ringlets with a fingertip. The unusual styling made her uncomfortable in her own skin—
An audible gasp jarred her out of the naval-gazing—or coiffure-gazing—reverie. She spun to find Malcolm standing in the doorway cutting a positively regal figure in full dress uniform.
“Does my hair look ridiculous?”
“On the contrary, it’s gorgeous. And your dress…I don’t have words for it. You look like a queen.”
She reflexively glanced down at the dress. Crafted of a shimmery silver material hardly more substantial than gauze, it draped over one shoulder and under the other to crisscross her chest, wrap around at her waist, and fall in an asymmetrical hemline to her calves. It couldn’t be further from the crisp, elegant yet practical business suits she preferred to wear for these sorts of meetings, but the Novoloume design was intended to serve as a compliment and goodwill gesture toward her hosts. After the trouble she was going to, she hoped they received and appreciated the message.
She offered Malcolm a pained grimace. “The things I do for the sake of diplomacy. You look dashing, though.”
He came over to massage her shoulders. “Same old uniform, shower and shave. Not much else I can do to fancy myself up.”
“Nothing else needed.” She welcomed his kiss, but soon forced herself to pull away. She’d spent so much time scowling at the mirror that they were now on the verge of running late. “No time. We need to go.”
“We do. But when we get back, I pray there will be time for me to peel this dress off of you one centimeter at a time.”
A shiver ran down her exposed spine, at his words and the low murmur of his husky voice upon her cheek. “I’ll talk fast—oh! We almost forgot.” She reached behind her to the countertop and retrieved a small vial with an injector attached to the cap. “Turn around.”
He dutifully obeyed, and she placed the injector on one of the tiny ports at the base of his neck then activated it. “There. Now you won’t fall under the spell of wicked, seductive pheromones.”
He chuckled. “Well, not the Novoloume ones, anyway.”
“Charmer.”
“Me? Noooo.”
“Yes, you.” She cast a final dubious scowl at the mirror before grasping his hand, and together they headed out.
NOPREIS
NOVOLOUME HOMEWORLD
PEGASUS DWARF GALAXY
LGG REGION VI
Nisi’s eyes lingered on Mia for an extra second when they arrived in the teleportation room, though it was a professional appraisal rather than a lustful one. He nodded approvingly. “Well done. You are a shrewd one, Ambassador Requelm
e.”
“High praise from you, Sator.” She motioned to the active teleportation gate. “After you, sir.”
He squared his shoulders and stepped through the gate; she and Malcolm followed.
They emerged in a large, open space lacking boundaries. Neither outdoors nor fully enclosed, its walls were spun gossamer undulating in a warm breeze. The floor beneath her dress shoes was glass marble, as was the ceiling far above her head. Every piece of furniture in sight qualified as art worthy of a gallery spotlight. Beyond the nominal walls, sunlight shimmered off both water and burnished structures alike.
They were met by two Novoloume. A man and a woman, she thought, but the visual differences between their sexes were too subtle to be certain.
The one on the left greeted Nisi with the half-bow and closed-palm ritual greeting among Anadens of stature. “Sator Nisi, welcome on your return.”
Nisi countered by crossing his arms at his chest and touching his fingertips to his elbows, a formal Novoloume greeting she’d been shown. “I am honored to be welcomed in your halls.” He gestured to them. “May I present Ambassador Mia Requelme and Brigadier Malcolm Jenner, official representatives and dignitaries of the Humans.”
“Welcome to Nopreis, Ambassador, Brigadier. May the skies grace your presence. I am Onai Veshnael, Dean of Nopreis. This is Necha Hahmirin, my Senior Advisor. Let us show you a bit of our capital city.”
They fell in beside their hosts as a panel of gossamer parted to allow their passage and reveal the full splendor of their surroundings. The city was built upon a gently sloping strand of sea foam waters; its profile swept in graceful curves outward and upward to rolling hills and a rose sky. Patina grass perfectly complemented the architecture, as if completing the color palette of a masterwork mural.
The impression of everything being made of glass was strong, if incorrect. Novoloume traveled along marble pathways, each and every one moving with exquisite grace and garbed as if for a royal banquet. It appeared she was not overdressed after all.
Aurora Resonant: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 3) Page 99