Warm milk. What am I, five? Bloody hell. Maybe Alik is right; some sacrifices are too great. Best to go out in a vapor plume of decent Scotch. “Thanks. I appreciate it.” He rubbed his hands together before cupping them and blowing hard on his dry palms. “I’m cold.”
“Get used to it,” she said as she fussed around the food printer.
“Damn. This isn’t how I thought it would end. I was hoping for the bang, not the whimper.”
She put a mug in the microwave. “There’s another ship arrived.”
“Christ, now what?”
“It’s called the Refuge of Hope, and it’s scooped up humans from the exodus. I think they came from two new planets.”
“Shit. The exodus? Man, that’s bad. They’re hunting us, then?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but it was inevitable. They are fanatics.”
“Damn, I wonder who it was.”
“I can try and filter a little deeper.”
Callum took the mug she was offering him. “Thanks.” The liquid tasted of nothing: warm white water.
“There is one thing that the fullmind is examining in a primary consciousness routine,” she said. “They’re concerned. They know about the exodus and what its goals are.”
“The exodus goals? You mean, that humans are supposed to be building up our military strength to fight back?”
“Yes.” She hesitated. “And more.”
“More?”
“They must have interrogated people, extracted memories directly from their brains. The Olyix know who we are. The five of us are featuring pretty heavily in the fullmind’s thoughtstream.”
GOX-QUINT
SALVATION OF LIFE
Nullifying the neuralstrata’s perception in the hangar is an easy accomplishment, a few simple misdirections in the autonomous routines of the local nexus. I don’t enjoy concealing my activities from the onemind, but I don’t have a choice; the onemind is mistaken about its priorities. Those bastard humans are still alive in here somewhere, so I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do.
Everything that’s happening is just more proof I’m right. I’m amassing the information brought to us by the redoubtable Refuge of Hope, who carries so many of this vile human race. Didn’t expect that, did you, you little shits? Didn’t expect us to come chasing you across light-years and centuries. We’ve seen it all before, you know, all the treachery and villainy overrated simians like you represent. We know how to deal with you.
You will be brought to account for yourselves at the end of time. There is no escaping that noble destiny we are charged to deliver.
I mean, did you really think your pitiful little brains could outsmart us, even with those fucking Neána scum pushing you, lying to you, giving you false hope and better technology they probably stole from us or the Katos? No, my deluded friends. That’s not how this universe works. Not at all.
And how dumb was that plan anyway? Run away and breed like deviant rats until there are enough of you to swarm our enclave? Have you no intelligence at all; can you not even try to imagine what we have amassed to defend ourselves? We have been shepherding and saving other forlorn, misguided races since before your squalid zero-sentient ancestors even learned how to use fire.
So you sneaked your way on board? So fucking what, assholes? Nobody’s ever going to hear your Signal. Not over that distance. You lost.
And now all I need to do is finish my one final cleanup assignment. Because I’m going to find you, no matter how long it takes. I am going to kick your loathsome—
—
Oh. Interesting. That’s it? That’s them? The best of the best? You call them saints now? Really? Them? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I’ve had bodies that are already dead and rotting who would be a better choice.
Still, that means you’re mine now; I fucking own you. And I’ll enjoy every second of it. I might even hook into the local environment biostructure plexus to smell your fear when I find you. And, yeah, I know I should hand you over for a cozy little suspension in the limbo ships until we reach the end of time. But, hey, accidents happen, and your bodies are feeble; they damage easily in a fight. I know that. Do I ever! I’m good at it, too.
See, the trick to hunting terrestrial animals is putting yourself in their position, adopting their mind-set, understanding their motivations. Once you are centered in that place, their options become clear to you and their moves easy to anticipate.
When I draw out the memory of the stolen transport ship from the neuralstrata, I know the exact position it rested on the floor. I stand where the nose was, pointing toward the wall. I feel it, build the memory into a solid vision. I am the transport ship. They move inside me. They skulk. Shuffle from day to day. Their primitive brains spark dully as they formulate their pitiful plans.
Everything the humans did on the day they launched their S-Day attack against us was designed to put that one ship on board the Salvation of Life. Big deal. It took everything you had, cost every last fusodollar—your entire output from every industrial station, all your dirty political deals, just to place five people here in this very hangar.
And here they remain—somewhere close. Don’t you? I know it, even if the Salvation of Life won’t acknowledge that. That onemind is too far up its high and mighty ass to listen to me.
Well, I know you now. Saints.
Yuri Alster, a has-been secret policeman and alcoholic miserabilist incapable of relating to another human.
FBI senior special detective Alik Monday. Professional ass-licker to politicians, the most corrupt high-level fixer you can get.
Callum Hepburn, disgraced engineer, weakling and moral coward, Emilja Jurich’s court eunuch.
Jessika Mye. Neána construct. Not even alive by any definition.
And Kandara Martinez. Oh, Kandara, you think you’re tough, don’t you? Ms. Virtue, a black-ops illegal murderer of gangstas. So badly damaged by your parents’ death, your ruined mind has to be controlled and calmed by drugs, lest your own fury burn you up.
I will find you, Kandara. I promise I will find you and finish what you and I started on Verby. I’m going to remind you what your kind used to call me back then when I moved among you. It was a good name, too, because every human knows, Cancer always gets you in the end, bitch.
MORGAN
OLYIX SENSOR STATION
The day before the armada’s departure, Yirella visited Immanueel in their centrex. She walked in cautiously, anxious as always not to skid on the glossy floor. The shapes that made up the hemispherical wall seemed different somehow, more rounded this time, a little less mechanical. As before, she tried to work out which was Immanueel’s big biophysical body. For some reason, her pattern recognition was poor today.
“Are you well?” Immanueel’s voice asked.
Yirella turned full circle, trying to get a lock on where they might be. The little lights that slid along the cracks were of no help. “Doing okay, like always. Nervous that we’re about to go kick Olyix butt.”
A chortle echoed lightly around the chamber. “Methinks you have been spending too much time with Ainsley.”
“You’re probably right. I like his confidence. I find it soothing.”
“Some say confidence. Others, ego.”
“Yeah, but think what he’s accomplished in his life. He was born in the twenty-first century, for Saints’ sake. He created the Connexion Corp, helped Emilja push through the exodus. And here he still is, a warship that makes even you guys edgy.”
“Born rich, and leveraged his way into exploiting portal technology. Then he bought politicians. Connexion was the pioneer when it came to establishing rock-squatter asteroids as tax havens, which helped maintain Universal culture across Sol.”
“Humans are not born equal; we all have different abilities. His we really need right now, like the Juloss civilization needed me
and the boys.”
“I acknowledge the necessity of difference among us, and encourage it. If it were a currency, every human would have been rich since the dawn of our history.”
She caught a movement. One of the wall shapes was moving slightly faster than the others, its profile changing, the light beads sliding away from it. “I came to ask if you had pulled anything else out of the quint brains. Specifically, the history of the enclave star system?”
“Ah. Our quest to find the origin of the tachyon message? Well, I have good news: It proceeds apace. The enclave system is indeed the home star of the Olyix. Alas, I could not determine how long ago they heard the message from whatever entity they named the God at the End of Time. However, the Olyix do appear to have been on their crusade for over two million years.”
“Saints! They must be close to invincible by now. The Angelis fleet was running to another galaxy. Even the Katos were avoiding direct confrontation. Does that make us the dumb ones?”
The shape stopped moving for a moment.
“An interesting assessment,” Immanueel’s voice said. “In the time the Olyix crusade has been active, they have invaded and captured over three thousand alien races. The exact number is unknown to us, as details like that are not important to quint. They do so lack our unquenchable curiosity about the universe. Perhaps if you are born, or created, into a society that has been unassailable for so long, you no longer feel the need to ask questions, for all have been answered already.”
“Yeah. That would certainly account for their arrogance, the belief that they’re right. I just can’t stop thinking about how much damage they’ve caused in cosmic ecological terms. It’s devastating.”
“Unlike our own expansion, which has been scattering terrestrial DNA across a sizable portion of the galaxy.”
“Touché.” She watched Immanueel’s outline resolve as their biophysical body reached the base of the wall. “So you don’t think it was a God then, sitting up there in the future?”
“I consider it extremely unlikely. Which I admit sounds like an agnostic answer rather than a definitive atheist assertion. More likely it is some remnant of the Olyix trying to reinforce a temporal loop to bolster its own position.”
“More paradox.”
“Not entirely. The fate—or destiny—of the Olyix are undoubtedly linked to this entity. Consider this: Who else would know where to aim the tachyon beam? This entity would have to know both where the star is in that time, and that there is someone there to receive it. Not to mention using a language that the pre–crusade era Olyix will understand.”
“Gods are omniscient,” she mused.
“Indeed, so why do they need captives from the past to be brought to their altar?”
“You mean, why does a next-generation Olyix need them? That’s likely what this is. We will need to ask it.”
Immanueel’s biophysical body straightened up as they detached themself from the wall. Their tail was the last part to be free, and flicked around in celebration. “Ah, I always enjoy taking my first breath. It is an experience I associate with my old singlebody waking from slumber.”
She gave their tall body a bemused grin. Talking about gods…“You’ve scheduled departure for seventeen hours.”
“We have, yes. Is there a problem?”
“No. I just wanted to check you think you have everything you need. We can wait here as long as you like while your manufacture systems build more weapons.”
Immanueel’s urbane face produced a beatific smile. “If FinalStrike cannot be accomplished with what we have now, it cannot be accomplished at all.”
“Okay, then. I just wanted to ask. I’m officially here to tell you the advisory council thinks four days is enough flight time for us.”
“A day for each year, then. Very well, we will manipulate the time flow inside your ships accordingly. May I ask what you intend to do during that time?”
“The squads will have one final day of training. Then it’s just going to be gym work and contingency planning. It should bring the squads to peak efficiency when we reach the gateway star.”
“Commendably efficacious. However, I was referring to you, dearest genesis human. What will you do during FinalStrike?”
“I’ll watch. There’s nothing else I can do by then. We either win or we don’t. I’ve done everything I can now.”
“Indeed you have.” Immanueel reached down and took her hands. “There is no need for you to come with the armada to the enclave.”
“No! Don’t even go there. I am not abandoning my friends and my Dellian. I never will.”
“The genesis human would consider every rational proposal.”
“Good luck finding her.”
“You haven’t even heard what I’m suggesting.”
Hating herself, she said: “Go on.”
“A subgroup of my aspects could break away and become independent.”
“Wait, what? I thought that was…not exactly illegal, but frowned upon? Corpus humans don’t divide up, do they?”
“Not normally, no. But one way or another, we face the end of an era. We have done everything we can to ensure the survival of our species, and the egress faction has guaranteed that some humans will remain forever free. If this armada of ours fails to defeat the Olyix, then we will not survive the weapons that are being deployed in the last battle.”
Yirella took a shaky breath. “Okay, I wasn’t expecting you to be quite that blunt. But that’s not how we should venture into this. Pessimism never won any battle.”
“Ah, yes, a Dwight D. Eisenhower quote, I believe.”
“You believe right.”
“I do not go into this with pessimism, Yirella. Objectivity is my creed. And given the odds, a fallback would be prudent. You could create a secondary version of yourself as well.”
“Fuck! No way. Absolutely not.”
“If FinalStrike is successful, we would simply remerge with our originals. If not, you live.”
Yirella squeezed their hands warmly. “Without anything to live for. No, Immanueel, I see you are kind and sweet, but no. Whatever fate has waiting for us at the enclave, I will embrace it with the people I have shared my life with. And I’m glad you’re now one of them.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed them gently on the cheek. “Thank you.”
* * *
—
Ainsley’s android was waiting outside the deck thirty-three canteen like a forlorn statue. Yirella slowed as she saw him and produced a mournful smile. She knew why he was there.
“Join us,” she said. “The whole squad’s inside. Your friends.”
“Your friends, you mean.”
“Fire forged friends, and all that. They’d be glad to see you. We’re watching the armada form up. It’s becoming something of a tradition.”
“Another reason I can’t stay.”
“Yeah, I accessed the formation plan. You’re taking point.”
“Gotta have someone at the front who’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”
“A later that’s never.”
“That’d be me. You got an argument against it?”
“No.” She shook her head, studying his blank white face for any intimation of expression. “Immanueel told me there are some of your weapons they can’t replicate.”
“Yeah, the part of my armamentarium that came from the Katos. I don’t remember much of them from the Factory era; I guess that was edited out of my memory for security. But they’ve taken the understanding of phase matter up to the celestial level. Trust me, these are the swords Gods use to smite the unrighteous.”
“Interesting. So why didn’t they ever go head-to-head with the Olyix?”
“Same problem we have, I guess. If we lose, the Olyix gain the technology. Makes it a fuck of a lot harder for the next guys who come alo
ng.”
“That makes no sense. Why give it to you, then?”
“I’m supposed to be running a guerrilla campaign, remember. Factory ships like me were supposed to hassle the Olyix in this portion of the galaxy so the exodus descendants can finally catch a break. Out here in the big dark, they’d never be able to catch me like they never caught the Katos mothership. I’ve got evasion techniques like you’ve never seen. See what I did there?”
“Oh, dear.” She grinned fondly even as she winced. “So we’re not likely to ever find Sanctuary?”
“No.”
“Well, thank the Saints for that. If we can’t, neither can the Olyix.”
“Yeah.” His white lips crinkled up, head nodding slightly, an imitation of awkward.
Yirella let the pause drag on until she shared the moment. “So…I’ll see you on the other side.”
“That’s a date.”
“You take care, point man.”
“I will. Yirella, you know he’s crazy about you, right? The boyfriend.”
“Yes.”
“Just checking. Sometimes you start to take things like that for granted without even realizing what you’re doing. And I was married fifteen times, so I really do know what I’m talking about here.”
“Saints, Ainsley Zangari—a romantic. That’s not in any history files I’ve ever accessed.”
“Seeing high school sweethearts always makes me happy. And there ain’t much happy in this galaxy right now. I’d hate to see another little bit die.”
“I think I get the high school reference, but it’s okay; you don’t need to worry about me and Del.”
“Good. I’m going to go now. I’ll see you in a week or so. When this is all over.”
She fought the hardening muscles of her throat that were making talking so difficult. “I’ll see you in a week.”
* * *
—
“You all right?” Dellian asked when she walked into the café with its arched windows letting in the warm Parisian sunlight of late spring.
The Saints of Salvation Page 37
