Tyger Bright

by T. C. McCarthy

  “This is it,” Win said, turning on his radio.

  “What is?”

  Win stabbed a front spike into the grass near Zhelnikov, almost impaling the man’s foot. “This. Under here. Have your men scan this area for an entrance to an underground site.”

  The armored men assembled in a circle, setting up a perimeter around Zhelnikov and Win, while several broke down their packs to remove folding shovels. They went to work at the dirt near Win’s feet. Within fifteen minutes they had dug a narrow trench in the shape of a square, where sharp-cornered concrete lay exposed.

  “We located it,” one of them said over his speakers. “A large hatch or door.”

  “What next?” Zhelnikov asked.

  “We knock.”

  Win slammed his left front spike into the hatch with a thud, sending shards of concrete in every direction. He did it again. He was about to do it a third time when a loud grinding noise filtered up through the grass around them, and the group moved back to watch the square section of earth and concrete inch to the side. A low hum came from the dark shaft now open before them. Win peered over the edge and adjusted his sensors to maximum range, doing his best to see into the depths, which looked black and empty. He watched until a platform took shape, rising upward toward the surface.

  A single nun stood on the platform and smiled, then glanced around to look at the guards who pointed weapons in her direction. She bowed to Win and Zhelnikov. Win noticed how young she looked. He scanned her features and compared the data to biometrics that now streamed into his system via an antennae, but nothing matched, and Win guessed she couldn’t be more than thirty years old; a part of him recognized beauty.

  “I’ve been waiting here for some time,” she said.

  “For what?” Zhelnikov asked.

  “For you and your pet. The monster we all knew you’d create.”

  Win noticed the cloak she wore—a phase shifter, not activated so its folds combined a drab mixture of pale greens and reds. “You’re a Proelian.”

  “Of course she’s a Proelian bitch,” Zhelnikov spat. “Only they would live in a hole all these years, then come out pretending that they’d been waiting the whole time for us. It’s all a trick, everything an act with them.”

  “Silence,” Win said.

  The woman smiled again. “Your pet knows, Zhelnikov. Even though he’s more animal than human, he knows the truth of everything standing here now—including the truth that sometimes it’s important to keep one’s mouth closed.”

  “Truth?” Zhelnikov stepped forward and drew his pistol. “I’ll show you and your order the truth.”

  Win swung a leg to the side, hitting the man in his midsection and driving the wind from him; Zhelnikov flew backward to land in the grass. The old man struggled to get up and eventually stood, gasping for air and holstering his weapon.

  “I said silence,” Win said. “This is not why I’m here.”

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “My name is Win.”

  “We don’t acknowledge anything so inhuman by giving it a name. Surely you knew that.”

  “But if you know the truth,” said Win, “then you know why I’m here.”

  “I know only that some truth eludes you. No matter how much of that chemical cocktail you consume, there are some futures you cannot see because they are not for you. For those things, you need the papers. The written words. And you need humanity.”

  “But why?” Win asked. He wanted to step closer and drive a spike through her head, the anger unexpected. He took a moment to trace its origin to a sense of fear that rooted itself in a deep terror at the base of new neurons: He was afraid she was right. Some things were obscured from him—always would be—and such blindness horrified him more than anything else.

  “Because you are of lies. Anything born out of lies will never see the truth.”

  “I want the papers,” said Win.

  “They are gone and you will never find them.”

  Win stepped forward. “What did the writings say?”

  “What will you do? Kill me?” The nun laughed and threw the cloak’s hood up to cover her face in shadow. “That would not give you the outcome you want.”

  Win stabbed. He meant to spear her shoulder but was unable to control it and the metal rammed through her gut and out the back where it pierced the phase-shifter fabric. The woman grunted with the blow. Then she looked toward the sky and whispered something, but Win’s sensors couldn’t pick up the words. She grinned at him, her teeth blood stained.

  “Just as I knew you’d do. A monster.”

  “Win,” Zhelnikov started. “What are you—”

  “Not now. We need to get down in the shaft and find out if she was lying about the papers. The Sommen wanted them too, but it’s possible they left them in the care of the Proelians; it’s not clear how these nuns won the Sommen’s confidence—why they were spared.”

  “But what papers? This is madness.”

  Win was about to explain when a guard started screaming. Then another shouted, dropping to the ground and rolling. Soon all the ones closest to the hatch had dropped their weapons to tear at their armor in a frantic effort to disrobe, and Win stepped back in confusion.

  “Microbots,” said Zhelnikov. “From underground. She laid a trap. Those men are being eaten alive.”

  The rest of them ran. Win bounded over the grass, tripping twice after they reached the glassy area where he managed to right himself after rolling to a stop. Zhelnikov kept pace. By the time they reached the transport and looked back, a trail of guards had strung out from their craft to the dead nun, most of them still except for a few who still struggled with the tiny robots that now attacked them from within, burrowing into their flesh and consuming heart tissue. The door shut and the transport lifted with a jerk.

  “So much for your Praetorian Guard, old man.”

  “What papers?” Zhelnikov asked again.

  “A prophecy. The Sommen wanted it because it meant something to them and they knew it was here. One from ancient Earth, centuries ago. There was a visitation at this location, a woman who gave a prophecy to three shepherd children.”

  “That nonsense? Why is it so important? Can’t we find that in history books?”

  “We can find the lies in history books. The actual words given to the children were transcribed and brought to Rome. They returned here, just prior to the Sommen arrival and just after the rise of the Proelian order.”

  “But what was it supposed to say?”

  Win sighed. “It told how the world would end. And how the universe would collapse soon after, taking all of us either into perpetual darkness, or into a new age of peace.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Mathematics is truth and therefore the language of God. All solid foundations rest on mathematics.” San spoke the mantra with the rest of her small class, while they bounced in low gravity on a stone floor, their feet hooked into straps to prevent them from shifting too far from their assigned spot. “To give consciousness to a computer is a sin. To trust in them for computation a weakness. We are weapons because of mathematics, instruments of fact thanks to the clear sight it lends. We see lies because, open to the truth, the mind sees untruth as the calculus of those bent on evil. I will never again put my faith in computational systems granted awareness. I will never rely on computations from outside my mind. I am an instrument of truth. I am a computational certainty.”

  Sister Frances—San had learned that was the name of the nun who had welcomed her on Ganymede—clapped her hands. “Enough.” She rose from behind a massive wood desk, and slid open a drawer. One by one she pulled daggers out and flipped them toward the group, the metal shining in the light with each rotation.

  San grabbed hers from the air and examined it. The steel was bright except for spots that had pitted with age, and its edges had been ground almost to those of a razor. She tested the point and winced.

  “Yes, child, they are sharp.”


  “What are they for?” a boy asked.

  “Access a deep memory section, combat, calculus of the European arts.”

  San closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed and she relaxed the major muscle groups one by one, then concentrated on the section Sister Frances had referenced. Her memories unfolded; as if she watched a movie, San soared through thoughts as a younger version of her sparred with an armored adversary twice her height, with black chainmail that dangled to the man’s knees. He swung a large broadsword and San almost shouted when the man’s weapon whistled through the air toward her head. The younger San dodged; she rolled closer so his sword would be useless, and then thrust the dagger upward into his groin, careful to swing it up and under the chainmail armor so the man collapsed, almost crushing her under his weight.

  In an instant she recalled everything and San was about to open her eyes when something else drifted by, nudging her mind with the gentle sensation of kindness. She sensed them all—the other candidates in the room. San grinned at the impression of rolling in waves of innocence as the others leaked thoughts and memories, dousing her with their names and histories mixed with the nervousness of not knowing what lay ahead. They are like me, she realized. All of them good, all of them frightened.

  By the time San opened her eyes, everyone stared at her.

  “Something wrong that it took you so long, child?” Sister Frances asked.

  “I was so little,” she lied. “And I couldn’t find the memory at first.”

  “For some it takes time to access early memories—the ones where you first succeeded after strings of failure. Experiences in the tank are built one on another, layered; if you want to access the earliest ones, plan on meditating for hours. Now, concentrate, children.”

  Sister Frances clapped her hands again. A round hatch spun open in the floor and from it rose a humanoid figure, a robot, the metallic frame of which had been covered with pink rubbery skin. “Line up one at a time. Let’s begin putting actual muscle memory into the mix and see how well the lessons took. Wilson. You first.”

  Wilson, the boy who had asked what the daggers were for, was the one closest to San and she recalled his leaked memories, of his joy upon finally being part of something after his failure in Fleet selection. She examined him closely. All of them had been bred for the Fleet program and so had the stocky appearance of ones meant to live in high g, and San barely saw Wilson’s neck; it was as though his head went straight into his shoulders. When Wilson glanced at her she looked away and felt her face redden with embarrassment.

  “Flirting later,” Sister Frances said. “Fighting now.”

  “What is this?” Wilson asked.

  “Combat trainer. We designed it in our labs here on Ganymede and produced it on our factory floor.”

  “But isn’t it semi-aware? I thought you taught us that the Proelians never used semi-awares.”

  The nun slid from behind her desk and reached for the robot’s head. With a few taps and then a twist of a knob, she opened the thing’s clamshell skull. There was almost nothing inside. Wires ran from the eye sockets, which had been designed to function as human eyes, and terminated in a small gray box that had been wrapped in a kind of metal coil.

  “There is no computer. This is brain-wave controlled, remotely. You will be fighting our masters in various martial arts, perfecting the forms. One Sister Jessica is controlling it from somewhere above us, and her brain signals are beamed into this receiver. The receiver translates her commands at the same speed as your nervous system, controlling the musculature and movements. It is pure, Mister Wilson.”

  Wilson stood, waiting for the nun to close the robot’s head and move behind her desk. The rest of the group made a space around them.

  “Mr. Wilson. Whenever you’re ready.”

  “I was thinking . . .”

  “This is not about thinking!” Sister Frances slammed her hand on the desk, launching herself upward a foot.

  The bot sprang. In Ganymede’s low gravity it pushed off and travelled the distance between it and the boy in less than a second, all while airborne. A bright rod-shaped object dropped from its wrist, extending outward. Before Wilson could dodge, the bot slammed the thing into the boy’s chest to send radial sparks of electricity, which induced a writhing kind of fit in him that only ended when the bot stepped back. Wilson slumped to the floor, unconscious.

  “You,” said Sister Frances. “San; get up. You’re next.”

  San rose. She felt the blade’s grip, its synthetic leather slippery with sweat, then relaxed her mind and willed it to access the tank memories, to mainline them to her muscles. Time slowed. Her eyelids drooped into a squint and San dropped to a shallow crouch, just before the bot pounced.

  San waited for its feet to leave the ground before she slipped to the floor, wincing at the sensation of electricity when the bots “dagger” passed just overhead. Without looking she slammed her fist upward. The bot contorted to evade so that the dagger tip nicked the thing’s shin, and then landed both feet against the far wall, its torso parallel to the floor; less than a second later the mannequin figure pushed off in a downward dive, straight at her.

  San leaped. Her feet left the floor and she somersaulted upside down, grabbed the robot’s head below her, and slammed the dagger into its neck. The bot’s hand smashed into her thigh sending San’s body rigid with spasms.

  “A wonderful display of acrobatics, child. But you died. The goal is to kill the enemy, not enter the afterlife along with him. Or her. Next!”

  The next morning San’s muscles ached from the uncontrolled spasms induced by combat training. She rubbed her arms and winced. A nun, a new one who was younger than Sister Frances and who wore a shiny set of coveralls and safety glasses, pointed at the laboratory equipment around them.

  “I am Sister Joan. The abbess, who you know as Sister Frances, established this laboratory decades ago, long before any of you were born, but in a way this is the place where all of you were conceived.”

  The woman began tapping on buttons and soon a holographic display rotated in front of her, a diagram of a human head—see through, so that San saw the skull, brain and spine. A cloud of microbots appeared. They entered through the skull’s nasal passageways, a fog creeping into the image and then working its way through membranes and into the brain cavity where it formed a dark line between brain and bone.

  “This was the first step. Your parents knew the dangers this solar system faces and decided to offer up their greatest love: you. All for an idea.”

  “You’re talking about what you did to our brains?” Wilson asked, interrupting. “Was it your idea or the Sommen’s?”

  “Do not interrupt, Mr. Wilson. But it’s a fair question. Fleet placed most of its faith in their chief scientist, Vladimir Zhelnikov. Truly a brilliant man, but as far from God as an ant from the sun. And Fleet weren’t idiots. They wanted a backup plan, a separate pathway to research that could take over in the event Zhelnikov failed. Plus, the admiral at the time was Filipino and a devout Proelian.”

  Sister Joan paused to sneeze before continuing. “The Sommen gave us all the data they have—everything stored since the beginning of their written and spoken language. This included their brain structure. But one thing was absent: interstellar communications. Zhelnikov was furious. He gave up for a bit and concentrated on their plasma weapons technology, but a mouse of a nun, Sister Alfonsa, had been concentrating on Sommen religion. This is where the breakthrough came: Sommen interstellar communications is not in their technical manuals. It’s in their Bible, if I can make that analogy—a pillar of their faith. Zhelnikov took credit for the discovery, but Fleet knew. That’s when they funded this program and helped the Proelians keep Ganymede Station hidden. We think that not even Zhelnikov knows this place exists.”

  San was transfixed. She felt as if everything had turned surreal as mysteries of the Sommen unfolded—after so many years of wondering about them and hearing whispered warnings from her pa
rents. Her father had encountered one of their warriors. He had used his illegal wetware systems to become a super-aware, a hyperintelligent cybernetic Dream Warrior, and had infiltrated Sommen armor systems to kill it via asphyxiation. Had he not been able to do that, San would have never been born.

  “We will go to war with the Sommen in about seventy years. They have promised to return, but as part of their faith they must give an adversary time to learn their ways and technology so that it will be a fair fight. That’s where you come in.”

  War, thought San. She had sensed it in visions when first navigating to Ganymede, but now that Sister Joan put it into words the reality of it hit. She fought back tears. Seventy years was a long time, and San might even be dead by the time war started, but what if she had children? Why bother with anything if the Sommen were going to return in seventy years and wipe out the human race? San fought a growing sense of fear and did her best to remain composed as she raised a hand.

  “Yes, San.”

  “Did you inject microbots when we were kicked out of Fleet training?”

  “Yes. You never washed out; you succeeded. And now you children are going to help us prepare for the coming war and will be the first generation of your kind.” Sister Joan pointed to the holo-display. “Although this shows the microbots entering via your nasal passages, we actually injected them and they crossed into your cranial cavity where they began eating a layer of bone matter. You all were genetically engineered to have thick skulls and extra matter for cushioning the brain—to withstand high g-forces. We needed some room. These microbots gave us an extra millimeter, and if you’ve been having headaches, that’s why.”