Elsbeth smirked. “No, I probably never will be … but, I guess we’ve got little choice.”
Shao said, “No time like the present.”
Raiza added, “While I’m enjoying the labebears, it will be something of a relief to hand them over.”
Silas said, “It’s time. Good or bad, it’s what we came for.”
Ximon said, “Yeah, kind of what I was thinking. Okay, we’ll jump for Ozu. Hard to say what will happen after. I reckon we’ll see that Representative thing again and that probably won’t be fun. Keep in mind, the goal is A) to get out alive, and B) see if we can rescue some of those lost ships and crews. We all may need to bite our tongues as best we can.”
Elsbeth said, “He can bite my—”
“Bite your tongue …”
Elsbeth put on a mock disgruntled face.
“But we don’t have to like it.”
Ximon hit the button to jump to Ozu with great trepidation.
Chapter Eleven: Almost Ozu II
During the jump, Ximon tried to relax, but he couldn’t. He was very conscious that they could come out of jump at any point or be met by the Representative’s ship. The uncertainty drove him insane. He could see the others felt the same uncertainty – Elsbeth fidgeted, Shao stared at her screens with bizarre intensity, and Silas paced. The robots, of course, were imperturbable, but even they seemed tense. No one could relax because they felt that ‘the hammer could drop’ at any moment.
About mid-way through day two, it did. Again, out of nowhere, they felt a resounding ‘clang.’ Then they heard that same strange lilting cadence and odd accent over the speakers. “Hello, Little Ones. We see you’ve made it back.”
They heard the grinding of what appeared to be the outer airlock. This time, they just waited tensely. They knew that preparing to repel boarders would do no good whatsoever and probably just get them destroyed.
The inner airlock door slid open. In walked the Representative – the same sleek gray-white skin, lower body with four bowed legs. Its upper body was nude and vaguely humanoid, but tall and slender. They again saw humor and contempt on the long, beautiful, and androgynous face.
It said, “As the Representative of Shebatha, we are pleasantly surprised that you have managed to return. Now, let us discuss the tasks you performed for us and see if your atonement is complete.”
It looked at its hand as if it held data, then pointed at the writing still etched in the wall and “Truvoco-4 Survey” glowed. “Ah, how do you account for your little selves there?”
Ximon said, “We carefully surveyed the planet, assessed that the event was a plague, worked to assess the impact of the plague, and then discovered its true origin. We have a report for you, as well as your equipment, if you would join us in the cargo bay.”
Ximon had all the equipment and data assembled for just this moment and handed a data chip to the Representative as soon as they reached the cargo bay. It just looked at the chip with some amusement.
“Oh, to be sure. Of course, along the way you felt you needed to play with the Ruda, and possibly interfere with the plague.” It glanced at Ximon with a bemused expression. “We are half surprised you didn’t marry one of them or something.” It laughed. “But, nevertheless, let’s call that complete.”
It again pointed at the wall and the words “Sewhir-3 See” glowed.
“Here you restrained your stupidity and did moderately well, such as you are. You seeded as we directed. It will be interesting to see how that all works out. Good Little Ones.” He patted Ximon lightly on the head. Ximon found this extremely demeaning and started to boil, but bit his tongue.
“Then at Suwa, you somehow managed to properly emplace a hyperspace reference beacon and it seems to be functioning. Of course, we did write the directions at a level that a reasonably bright rock could understand.”
The line with Suwa lit up, followed by Labeveri-4. Ximon handed the Representative another data chip.
“Now here you managed to divine something of the creatures of interest. I believe you called them labebears. What a bizarrely inane name, but what could one expect? You managed to properly count to three and even made sure they weren’t all the same gender. Not only that, you brought us a few bonus young.” This time it patted Raiza on the head and said in an insulting tone one might use when talking to an animal or a young child, “Were you trying for extra credit?”
Raiza simply said, “We tried only to fulfill the charge laid upon us. The young were a matter of happenstance.”
“Why, of course they were.”
It then pointed to Kaqarbius and it glowed an ominous red-orange color. “Now, alas, we come to Kaqarbius. Here you did not fare nearly as well. You did warn them the asteroids were coming, apparently convinced them they needed to leave, and even get a few of them to go with you. However, your instructions were clear, ‘If they don’t listen, do what you have to in order to cleanse the world of them.’ That seems simple, even for ones such as you.”
It shook its head sadly and made a “tsk, tsk” noise. “But is that what you did? No, you warned them, took a few on a sightseeing tour, and then dragged a few out of the system. However, the majority are still there even now. One would think the words ‘do what you have to in order to cleanse the world of them’ would be clear enough. But apparently those words were too big or complex. So, instead you came back to us with those people still sitting there. That is definitely ‘poor form’ as they say.” The Representative put its hand up to its face and tapped its chin. “So, then what are we to do?”
Ximon interrupted, “We got some of them off, the rest are leaving, and you’ve already got asteroids headed their way. We didn’t want to risk the labebears by just waiting for them to leave.”
“Now you’re just quibbling. We knew that you would quite likely fail at this, so we were again inconvenienced and had to go to all that work to send those asteroids.” He resumed tapping his chin. “So, what shall we do?” He paused. “Oh, yes, we’ll do that” and he pointed vaguely toward the crew.
Milliseconds later Ximon was hit by a wave of something. Every nerve in his body simultaneously activated – pleasure, pain, sound, vision, smell, touch, and otherwise. He reeled in sensory overload. He could almost feel his nervous system screaming. Then nerve signals out of his control caused every muscle to twitch, contract, or extend. His body jerked painfully and uncontrollably, and it was all he could do to get his body to fall to its knees before he pitched forward onto his face, alternately drooling, coughing, and retching. Blood and mucus ran from his nose. His heart raced, beat erratically, and felt as if it might explode or stop at any second. His breathing was spasmodic panting, alternating between deprivation and hyperventilation.
His mind, too, was assaulted. Every thought and every memory seemed to activate simultaneously, repeatedly, and in random order and association. He went through waves of every emotion as memories flooded in. His brain burned and ached painfully from extreme use and he couldn’t drive any conscious thought. He was completely shut out of control of his body and brain.
This state of disconnection with his own self lasted for an indeterminate amount of time. To Ximon it felt like hours of grueling pain, fear, and confusion, but it could just as easily have been milliseconds. The effects lessened eventually, and he started to gain vague awareness of things outside his body. He tasted the blood and bile in his mouth and thought he heard someone calling his name, but that might just have been a memory. Likewise, he believed he felt a touch, but that could have just been random nerve responses or some shadow of them. Eventually he could vaguely see Elsbeth lying a few feet away, face down in a puddle of blood, her body convulsing and racked with sobs.
The fog cleared a bit more and he felt the twitching of his body slow and then stop. He thought, perhaps, Raiza was kneeling next to him, examining his body, and calling his name. Likewise, he thought others were moving about in the distance. But he couldn’t be sure if any of that was real.
Ximon tried to say something, but all that came out was a groan, muffled by the fact that his face was on the ground.
The Representative chuckled at that and then continued, “Oh, yes, that’s what we’ll do.”
Ximon felt a tingle pass over him and saw Raiza’s body go rigid and then twitch. She toppled over next to him, the twitching placing her body off balance.
Raiza was hit by a wave that she knew to be EMP. However, this was clearly at different power and wavelengths from what the Representative had used on her and the other robots previously. She immediately detected strong irregularities in several semi-autonomous subsystems and in the flow of signals to and from her musculature. These irregularities caused twitching in some portions of her musculature and made some extremities move without her direction.
Approximately 0.67 milliseconds later she noted severe interference with the flow of data within her positronic pathways. This had multiple, immediate negative effects and presented a high probability of substantial long-term implications. It caused an unintended, quick read of all of her collected memories in a way that would almost certainly disrupt her internal prioritization and tagging of said memories. It prevented her from accessing most of her non-core functions and from communicating wirelessly with Mantis, the other robots, or any external devices. After 3.98 milliseconds, it began to interfere with her sensory input and output, blocking all visual input, degrading auditory input, and stopping all system wide tactile detection. It also interfered with her primary system control node, hindering her ability to coordinate or detect various subordinate brain functions. Her brain was essentially cut off from her body and her brain itself was disrupted.
These conditions lasted for an indeterminate amount of time because her central timing function was inaccessible, and she could only dimly track processing cycles. The issues then all began to subside, generally in reverse order of their onset. As soon as communication with all of her functions was restored, she began to gather diagnostics information. There were numerous system inconsistencies and things that would need to be shut down, rebooted, and resynchronized. She was also concerned that the EMP bombardment of her general data stores was at a level and frequency that suggested the potential for loss or corruption of data fragments. That would take time away from her other tasks and those of Mantis. If there was any corruption of her core routines or training programs, they might have to go to TSR to have them reinstalled or updated.
When her sensory inputs came back online, she immediately noted several things. First, she was laying on her side next to Ximon. He was clearly still affected by whatever had been inflicted upon him, but had gotten up onto his elbows and was leaning towards Riaza to try to check on her. He was also yelling her name with great concern. He seemed very angry, though she was quite certain it was not directed toward her.
Ximon spat to clear his mouth and growled, “What in the hell have you done to us?”
The Representative replied in its regular condescending tone, “Tsk, Tsk, Little One. Full atonement was necessary. But you are in luck. We can consider that complete. We will now take these items you have assembled for us and be on our way. You will continue your journey for a day and then will enter our system. There, you will be directed where to go and will not, of course, deviate from that in any way.”
Elsbeth, off to Ximon’s right, was just sitting up and venomously spat, “We hate you!”
The Representative laughed. “It’s always humorous to see the ant yelling at the boot. Our consensus is that we are fine with you hating us as long as you also respect us, fear us, and leave us alone. Otherwise, the boot will fall heavily upon you and those you hold dear.”
It then gathered some items and walked calmly and gracefully off the ship.
Ximon was sore, quite literally, all over. Every muscle throbbed, his stomach churned with bile, his chest throbbed like he’d had a heart attack, and the gnawing pain in his head was the worst he had ever experienced. He felt like death-warmed-over without much warming. He was also terrified for Raiza. That thing had zapped the bots before, but this seemed different somehow. She was only just beginning to move.
He sat up and surveyed the scene. Elsbeth clenched Peter, who had apparently been frozen upright, by the legs. Silas sat, holding Shao’s head in his lap, both looking like they’d been run through the wringer. Euclidia lay crumpled across the bay.
“Mantis, status?”
The only response was a fast clicking from the speakers, followed by static.
“How’s everyone doing?”
Elsbeth said in a pitiful tone, “Can I just die now? I want to die now.”
“No, request refused. Let’s all just try to get up slowly and see if there’s anything we can do for Mantis or the bots. Then you can sleep and pretend you’re dead.”
Silas said, “I’ve known pain and fear before, but never like that. Shao’s out cold. I think that overwhelmed her.”
Elsbeth groaned as she sat up more fully, “I’ve got dibs on every painkiller we’ve got.”
Over the next few minutes, Raiza and Peter returned to “consciousness” enough that they could communicate and move clumsily. Ximon hurriedly asked Raiza how she was and what he could do. She just said she needed time to do diagnostics and then might need to work with Mantis on restoring some data.
As if on cue, Mantis found her voice, though it was somewhat garbled. “Captain, I have been severely affected by EMP. I am doing diagnostics now but fear I will be negatively affected for several hours. I can only report that we are still in jump with no other vessels in detection range.”
“Thanks Mantis. Try to heal yourself and just let us know if anything happens. We’re all damaged and need rest.”
After several clumsy attempts, Ximon was able to stand and then help Raiza to her feet. Her movements were uncoordinated, almost as if she were drunk. His were little better.
“Ximon, I am sorry. My muscle control settings have been disrupted. I will fine-tune them shortly.”
Ximon then helped Elsbeth get Peter to his feet as his movements, too, were clumsy and awkward. Peter was much heavier than Raiza, so it took some concerted effort.
Raiza noted Shao’s state and was quite concerned. Silas assured her that Shao just needed rest and possibly lots of it.
Finally, Ximon looked to Euclidia. He had managed to sit up and move about. Ximon was pretty that Euclidia would head for Mantis and they could help each other.
“Euclidia are you OK?”
“Yes, Captain, I am mobile and will sit with Mantis, helping her as I can and getting her assistance.”
“Ok, take your time.”
Ximon then spoke to the room at large. “It’s bedtime everyone.”
He and Raiza went slowly to their cabin, supporting one another. Elsbeth, Peter, Silas and Shao followed close behind en route to theirs.
When Ximon got to their cabin, he helped Raiza into bed, took several painkillers, threw his clothes into the corner and collapsed. He slept the sleep of the dead but had the strangest and most vivid dreams he had ever had, many of them very disturbing as if his unconscious had found new demons to play with or bizarre new connections between memories.
Ximon awoke much later, completely confused as to what was going on. He checked the time and found he had slept almost ten hours. He felt like he could use a hundred hours more but didn’t feel his mind would let him sleep. He was worried about Mantis’ status as well as the crew’s.
Raiza still lay beside him so he knew she must be doing some serious diagnostics and reconstruction. He got up, feeling as if he was a hundred years old and kissed Raiza. He threw on a robe and headed for the shower, not caring at all about their gender hours for the shower room. O
nce he stepped in, he noticed it was in use, but it was just Silas soaking under the farthest shower head.
Ximon stepped under the hot water with great relief. He just stood dumbly there, letting the water massage him.
Silas said, “Shao woke up several hours ago, but went straight back to sleep. I feel like hell myself and have to check on Io. I simply didn’t have the energy to find him earlier.”
“I’m glad Shao’s okay. I’m not sure when, or whether, I’ll feel human again. I hurt all over.”
“Yep. That beat me down like nothing else ever has. Those things are real assholes.”
“No doubt.”
Silas left and Ximon just let the water rush over him, seemingly for hours. Finally, he concluded he must move. He made a vague attempt at drying and threw his robe back on. He padded to the bridge, dripping water behind him.
Mantis greeted him when he entered, and she sounded much better. “Good morning, Captain. My diagnostics and repairs are almost complete, though a few things may need to be addressed when we get home. We will remain in jump presumably for just over 12 more hours, based on the Representative’s statement. I am working with Euclidia, Raiza, and Peter to recover lost data fragments where possible.”
“Thanks Mantis.” He looked across at Euclidia. “How are you?”
“Mantis has done a great deal to restore me to full operation, but I will need some additional adjustments on movement. Some of those circuits seem to have a default tendency to certain problems.”
“Take your time and take it easy.”
“Captain, would you like lunch?”
“I would love lunch, but you focus on getting fixed.”
“Thank you, Captain, but I am not undergoing any repairs at this time.”
“Well, okay then. A little food might help me feel more human or give me the energy to move.”
Ximon had lunch and just sat quietly in the galley. In a bit, Silas and Shao came in. Silas was moving a bit gingerly but seemed okay. Shao looked haggard and moved slowly and painfully as if she had just come out of surgery. Both were clearly hungry.
Vast Mantis Page 17