by Karl Beecher
Physically, this space wasn't much to look at, just a short, plain corridor with a couple of doors leading off it. The important thing was the content. On one side, was the vault, his walk-in safe where he kept various treasures, art pieces and artifacts he'd collected over the years. Comforting to gaze at when the stupidity around him became too much—not to mention valuable if he ever needed some portable wealth. On the opposite side, a second door led to a very special place, the reason he'd come down here in the first place.
He opened the door and entered the darkness on the other side.
Once inside, the spot lamps hanging around the walls illuminated and flooded the chamber with a soft glow, revealing everything to be just as he remembered it. He hadn't visited this place for a while, but there was little that could have changed in the meantime. There was no ornamentation or decoration. The room was cut neatly from the bare, grey-brown subterranean rock. In fact, apart from the lamps, only one other thing occupied the chamber.
The artifact.
Alone it sat, utterly still and unknowable. A black obelisk, two metres tall and darker than the night sky. It appeared exactly as it had years ago, the day the builders had stumbled upon this very chamber. Buying their secrecy had been expensive, but worth it.
The artifact was Predecessor. There was no doubt about it, but anything else was pure speculation. Was it merely a piece of art, or did it have a use? Lowcuzt had never discerned one, and neither had the handful of people he'd allowed near it. As long as he'd known it, the artifact had remained a dormant mass.
He tekapted the message that Forn had intercepted earlier and read it again. Colin Douglass had told of a jet black, obelisk-shaped object standing alone in a room of similar size. In fact, he could have been talking about the very same place Lowcuzt was standing in now. The rest of Colin Douglass' account was nonsense, a load of psychedelic drivel about visions and transcendental experiences caused by physical contact with the black material. Lowcuzt must have touched his artifact dozens of times and experienced nothing, not even a static shock.
Colin Douglass must have been either insane or an inventive liar. A shame. Lowcuzt would like to have believed that there was more to it than met the eye.
He looked closer at the artifact's flawless surface. Neither chip nor bulge spoiled its absolute perfection. It reflected not a single photon of light…
…which Lowcuzt had never noticed before.
Strange. The old lamps hanging at the walls cast no reflection on its surface. How come he'd never noticed that before? Come to think of it, he didn't remember activating those old-fashioned, manual lights. They weren't tekapt-compatible, and he hadn't touched the switch after coming into the room.
He looked at the wall lamps. They were off. All of them. So, where on Alcentor was the light coming from?
He grew vaguely anxious. An involuntary giggle escaped his throat. The light seemed to emanate from everywhere at once, as though the rocky walls themselves were giving off light. That couldn't be. There had to be a logical explanation, some silly thing he'd forgotten. Right?
And then he heard it. A humming. When it had first begun exactly, Lowcuzt couldn't be sure, but the artifact was definitely humming a quiet, trembling tone. It had never done that before.
As the sound absorbed his attention hypnotically, he developed an overwhelming urge to touch the artifact. It was as though the thing somehow spoke to him, invited him to come closer. He toyed with the idea, such an innocent proposal. What was there to be afraid of? He'd touched it before. He could touch it whenever he liked. Nothing would happen, obviously. Colin Douglass might have claimed otherwise, but he was obviously sick or a liar.
So, why not touch it? It stood only an arm's length away. It required only the merest scintilla of effort. Why not just reach out?
Lowcuzt saw his arm lift, almost without him willing it.
It extended towards the artifact.
23
"You idiot!" yelled Tyresa. "You loose-lipped, jabbering jerk-off!"
Colin looked nervously at the glass between them. It was just as well polyfermite was strong enough to withstand a proton rifle, because Tyresa's urge to punch a hole through it was overwhelming.
He coughed. "Look, I can see you're a bit upset—"
"Upset?" she exclaimed. "No, Colin. ‘Upset' is a word for when your million buck investment goes belly up. I need a different word, one you'd use when you give your friend a million bucks to make an investment for you, and he goes out and buys magic fucking beans."
He shrugged. "Miffed?"
Maybe punching through the glass was worth a try after all.
"What did I tell you just before they brought us aboard? Don't go blabbing about what happened on Solo IV, right?"
"Yes," he murmured, looking to the floor.
"And now I hear you've gone to the Captain and spilled the beans on everything!"
Colin looked confused. "You keep talking about beans. You're still being metaphorical, right?"
"Forget the beans, Colin! Why didn't you keep quiet like I told you?"
He sighed. "I got frightened. You're the brave one, not me. It's a bit hard trying to keep your cool while being questioned by weirdos who willingly stick cables into their own flesh. Interrogators who self-mutilate have a distinct edge over their prisoners, you know. And anyway, Doctor Zeddex told me she had to know everything. I had to be totally honest for the sake of my health. Nobody has any idea what this thing in my brain is."
"A huge, empty hole probably. If you'd actually used your brain, you'd have seen how easy it was to stay quiet. Nobody knows what that energy is, certainly not some ship's surgeon. It makes no difference to the doctor where it came from. At a pinch, you could have told them you'd encountered a mysterious object. You didn't have to mention the Predecessors and the messages they'd implanted in your head."
"The Predecessors?" echoed Colin. "I thought you said the simplest explanation was that humans had made the artifact?"
Tyresa went to shoot back a retort but came up empty. Frankly, he was right. "Oh, …just…well done you," she replied sarcastically. "You caught me out. Okay, fine. Predecessors, people, whoever. Somebody put that message in your mind. The point is, if you'd kept your mouth shut, it would have been us finding out what's at the end of the trail. Instead, it'll be a team of Transhacker archaeologists."
Colin frowned and seemed momentarily lost for words. "To be honest, that's not my top priority, Tyresa. Getting to a hospital is. Besides, I didn't reveal everything. I couldn't. I don't know the coordinates, for instance. They wouldn't know where to start looking."
That was some small comfort. At least he couldn't spill everything.
"All right," she muttered, beginning to simmer down a little. "I guess that's something. We still have a bit of leverage. We may yet get out of here."
"Get out?" said Colin. He pointed to her surroundings. "Of here? You must be joking."
"There's always a way," she replied. She'd escaped from worse places before.
"What are you going to do? Ask politely?"
As it happened, Tyresa had been working on a plan. There was precious little else to do in here. Dreaming up an escape was a welcome relief from the hours spent obsessing over the artifact and the messages, and trying to imagine what wondrous prize undoubtedly awaited her.
"In a manner of speaking, yes. A few persuasive words with someone on this ship might just do the trick."
Colin seemed to think for a moment, trying to work it out for himself. "You mean Commander Leet?"
She nodded. He'd guessed right.
"But as far as I could see," he said, "you two hate each other. Why would she help you?"
Tyresa leaned against the glass, reflecting on Colin's question. Hate? She might have hated Robbi, briefly, last year after the Commander had skipped town. Even then, she'd hated her deeds, not the woman herself. Not anymore, though. Sure, Tyresa put on a good show of hostility; lashing out was easier and felt goo
d. But, on reflection, Robbi had only been doing her duty.
"Hate is not the right word," she said at last. "How could I summarise our relationship status? It's complicated."
Colin shrugged. "Explain?"
Tyresa exhaled. "It's a long story."
He tapped the glass. "Clearly, you're not going anywhere. We have the time."
He had a point. It would make a nice change from stewing in silence.
"All right. No harm telling you, I guess." She stepped over to the bed and dropped lazily onto the edge of the mattress. "We first met about two years ago. I was sent to an excavation on Cygnus II. Cygnus is in Transhacker space, but archaeologists from a whole bunch of different nations were there. Obviously, security was tight. The Collective navy was out in force, keeping an eye on us. Which, ironically, made my mission easier. My other mission, I mean."
"What other mission?"
"You remember what I told you about archaeologists and their extracurricular activities when travelling abroad?"
She'd once explained to him how archaeologists had an easier time crossing borders than most people, and consequently, they were often asked by their governments to gather intelligence while out of the state. Hopefully, Colin's faulty memory hadn't led him to forget.
"Yes, I remember."
"Well," continued Tyresa, "this time the Alliance had asked me to find out some stuff about the Collective navy—"
Colin hurriedly shushed her and nodded towards the end of the room where his security escort was standing. "He might overhear us. If he reports what he hears to his superiors, imagine what they might do. You might never cross a border again!"
She chuckled. "Don't worry, Colin, this is old news. Besides, what archaeologists get up to is practically an open secret."
Colin looked taken aback. "Eh?"
"Every nation does it. They send their archaeologists to us, we send ours to them. And we all engage in a bit of snooping while we're at it."
"But…but…why would they tolerate that? Why wouldn't governments ban archaeologists from coming over altogether?"
"Ban us?" said Tyresa. "Those of us who specialise in the Predecessors are practically invited over. Foreign governments see espionage as a price worth paying if there's a chance of getting their hands on a Predecessor artifact. Plus, it's a lot cheaper than using actual spies. Have you any idea how much it costs to train one of those?" She continued with her story. "Anyway, the Collective was suspected of amassing a force for an invasion of Cervant, a neighbouring independent state. The Alliance asked me to find out what I could about their navy's dispersal. Eventually, I met Commander Leet. Or Lieutenant Leet as she was back then. She was helping oversee security at the dig site. And the more I got to know her, the more she seemed susceptible to a…a honey trap. Know what I mean?"
Colin's eyes grew wide. "You mean…? You…and her…that is, you…" Colin spluttered. He began making uncertain hand gestures, trying to communicate an idea he couldn't wrap his head around.
"What's the matter?" asked Tyresa. "Is your brain disease causing you problems?"
He shook his head. "You mean seduced her?"
"Yeah."
"You seduced a Transhacker?" He glanced off into the distance with a startled expression. "How?"
"It was actually quite easy," said Tyresa. "The pillow-talk came out pretty quickly. Deep down, Leet is really quite naïve. And," she added solemnly, "kind of sweet, I suppose."
"Sweet?" exclaimed Colin. "These people make Henry Kissinger look like Casanova." After another moment's thought, he seemed to surrender to the idea. "Oh, well," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "This is the future. Captain Kirk rogered green-skinned extra-terrestrials on a weekly basis, after all. I can hardly believe it."
Tyresa had no idea who these people were that Colin prattled on about, but didn't care. Her mind drifted elsewhere. She thought back to that night two years ago, sneaking away into her tent while everyone else was busy on the dig site. It wasn't Robbi's first time, but she was pretty innocent, awkward, and kind of adorable in her own way.
She gave Colin a knowing smirk. "Believe it. You've got to remember, it's all an act with Transhackers. They all put on this public face—logical, dispassionate, totally selfless—but it's a pretence. They just take pretence to a whole new extreme. Under the skin, under all that conditioning, they're just like the rest of us." Her smile melted away. A wistful feeling came over her. "I guess that's why I believed her when she came to me for help."
"How do you mean?" asked Colin.
"After I got the information I needed from her," explained Tyresa, "I took it back home. It turned out to be useful. The Alliance raised the alarm, and the Collective had to back off from Cervant. Then, a few months later, Robbi suddenly appeared on Ceti. She came to me personally, begging for help. She claimed her people had found out the leak came from her and so they'd stripped her of her rank and banished her. I was the only person outside the Collective she really knew."
"Wow. Did you help her?"
"What else could I do? I suppose it was partly my fault getting her into trouble. She seemed sincere, and she said some awful stuff about the Collective. I thought we might even get some more intelligence out of her. So I vouched for her."
It was the first time she'd told this story in a long time. Doing so made the dubiousness of Robbi's defection sound more obvious. Of course, the benefit of hindsight was a wonderful thing, but Tyresa hadn't felt suspicious at the time. In fact, she remembered being oddly pleased to see Robbi.
"Then what?" Colin asked.
"The Alliance checked her over. They cleared her and released her under my supervision. I even let her stay with me until she'd settled. Just for a couple of weeks."
"I take it there wasn't a happy ending."
She shook her head. "Before she appeared, I'd dug up an artifact on Epsidani, a fragment of a crystal which was probably part of a Predecessor computer. Real exciting stuff. If we'd determined how it worked, we might have been able to build new types of computers based on it. Anyway, fast forward a few weeks, and Robbi talks me into showing her where I worked. So I did. Showed her the university, the museum, the labs where the crystal was. Then, one morning I woke up and she wasn't there. The university called me. Guess what?"
"The crystal was gone too?"
Tyresa nodded. "The Collective knew about the crystal before Robbi even showed up. They'd sent her in solely to steal it. Turned out she'd never actually been disciplined. Instead, the Collective had covered up her indiscretion with me and struck a deal with her: redeem yourself by stealing the crystal or face the disgrace of banishment. They used her because they saw me as their way in."
She remembered the white-hot anger at discovering its disappearance, at the thought of being used. It was all rushing back.
"And I, like a sucker, fell for it."
She thumped the side of the bed so hard it hurt her hand.
"Don't be too hard on yourself," offered Colin. "You're only human. We all go a bit funny in the head when we have feelings for someone. It makes us do—"
"Woah, woah," urged Tyresa, leaping back to her feet. "What are you talking about? I didn't fall for her, where'd you get that idea?"
"I never said fall for her. I just said you had feelings."
"Well, however you phrased it, you can forget it," she snapped. "She's the one with feelings. She still has them; it was as plain as the implant on her face when she visi…"
Her voice trailed off.
Feelings. That could be the key. If Robbi could somehow be convinced that Tyresa still harboured feelings for her, then that might truly reignite the Commander's affections. It had worked before with the roles reversed, why not again? And then, once Robbi had become putty in Tyresa's hand, she could be manipulated into letting Tyresa, Colin, and Ade go free.
This was behaving a bit cold, admittedly, but things were desperate. Plus, in the ongoing game between them, Tyresa figured she was behind. Robbi's revenge had b
een disproportionate. Tyresa had only persuaded Robbi to talk, whereas Robbi had stolen from her.
Some leverage would be important, something to dangle before Robbi as an excuse to draw her in. The artifact coordinates would serve nicely. That left the question of getting word to the Commander, plausibly without seeming obvious.
Tyresa looked around her cell, seeking inspiration. Then her eyes drifted to Colin, prompting her to remember his concern a moment ago about being overheard.
Of course! All the cells were probably bugged. Prisoners' conversations were likely recorded as a matter of course. Come to think of it, that's probably why the Captain had allowed Colin to come here in the first place, so he could eavesdrop in the hopes of learning more about the artifacts. How could she have not seen that earlier? At least she'd realised in time to twist it to her advantage.
Time to lay the ground.
She turned to Colin. "Okay, yeah," she said, making sure to speak clearly for the hidden microphone. "You got me. I still have feelings for Robbi. What can I say? I just can't help myself. When we were alone together…woof! She cast a spell on me. She'd have me barking like a dog if she asked. Did you hear that, Colin? I'd be like a puppet on a string if I found myself in Robbi's boudoir."
"Yes," he said wearily, rubbing his eyes. "I heard."
"You all right?" asked Tyresa, only just noticing how pale Colin had suddenly gone.
He ran a hand across his now moist forehead. "Not sure," he replied. "But thank you for finally showing some concern."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean you've barely shown any interest in my health at all."
"What are you talking about?" exclaimed Tyresa. "I've been trapped in here, haven't I?"
"Yes, but have you even asked, before now, how I'm feeling or how my examination went? No, all you talk about is breaking us out of here so you can beat everyone else to the prize. How about just getting me to a hospital instead?"
