Exiles

by Richard Alonzo

  Chapter 8 The Priestess and the Prophet

  The hulking mass of the Dobzhansky, Malstrom’s last surviving, most sophisticated, and advanced research vessel, sat deep within heart of the Ceruleus Ring Nebula. Hidden from view, and more importantly the prying sensors of their many enemies. It was far more than just the last, best hope, for the survival of the Malstrom Corporation, for now it had become the nerve centre of the Brethren. The beating heart of a highly profitable cult, whose tendrils stretched into every region of the galaxy, and whose influence grew exponentially as it spread.

  Tracy the High Priestess, the overseer of the faith, stood alone in a small room bathed in white light. She wore a plain purple hooded robe, whose edges were embroidered with gold, over a flowing white dress with a plunging v-shaped neckline pulled in at the waist by an ornate golden belt. She pushed back the hood, shaking her head, as her golden hair tumbled down over her shoulders and focused her cold green eyes, set in the finely sculptured features of her face, on the task in hand. A smile spread across her deep red lips as she leant over the softly throbbing crystalline data core and caressed it. It was suspended in the same silver steel anti-gravity cradle in which she’d found it when liberating it from the Angle-1 facility and that fool Oscar four eventful years ago. She’d lost count since then how many had been judged and found wanting, beginning with that miserable rat Oscar, who’d had the temerity to press his unsolicited lips against hers. She’d risen through the ranks to become the guardian of what, to the faithful at least, was the ark and unchallenged leader of the mighty Brethren, leaving a trail of bloody corpses in her wake. The one constant had been Anderson the prophet in waiting at her side and now the time had come for him to fully ascend to his role. Together they would be unassailable and blaze a glorious trail across the stars as the leaders of the chosen ones, the Priestess and the Prophet.

  The chief neurosurgeon stepped quietly into the room dressed from head to toe in his blues, his blond hair concealed under a surgical cap. He had an almost comical, clown like quality, in his blue overshoes in the otherwise sterile environment of the anti-chamber. The magnifying lens he used in surgery pushed back from glasses.

  “We’re ready to commence the procedure.”

  “Are you sure you’ve worked out all the kinks this time?”

  She stared fiercely at him. The nanobots that coursed through her blood stream switching the colour of her hair from gold to fierce fiery red in an instance. Her cold green eyes burning with the intensity of a bright orange flame. Despite being a merely cosmetic enhancement it never failed to unnerve those around her. As all too often it signified that someone was about to be judged and found wanting.

  He remained calmer than most perhaps because he knew that right now she needed him. He was a craftsman, peerless among his peers, and a vital component of her plans for now at least.

  “We’ve analysed the last two test subjects and believe we have isolated the problem with the neural feedback loop. The clone was particularly helpful in indentifying the unique aspects of Anderson’s physiology. I estimate a ninety-five percent chance of success with Anderson himself.”

  She amused herself by cycling her hair and eyes through the colours of the rainbow, till they aligned themselves with the colour of her robe, as he stood unflinching, watching the peacock like display impassively. She couldn’t help wondering if he’d been nano enhanced himself to steady his nerves and his hands.

  “Very well you may proceed.”

  She pulled her hood up, casting a deep shadow over her face, as she allowed her hair and eyes to return to their default setting of gold and green and clicked her fingers. Four acolytes who'd been waiting patiently in the corridor outside, dressed in white surgical overalls, stepped into the anti-chamber. They position themselves around the cradle that held the data core, or as they thought of it the ark of faith, one at each corner their heads bowed in supplication.

  The neurosurgeon opened a concealed door in the wall opposite them and led them into the large sterile room. The surgical team, dressed in their blues, stood ready around an operating table that dominated the centre of the room, surrounded by various pieces of equipment and trays of tools. Along the far wall were a row of large tanks, full of a cloudy green amniotic fluid, into which oxygen and other substances bubbled through an array of tubes. Dark shadows of barely visible humanoid shapes were suspended in the murk. Fully matured clones, ‘Tank blanks’ as they were known colloquially, waiting to be imprinted with an identity and brought to life. She followed him into the room and gestured to her acolytes to follow her with the ark. Meekly they complied and she watched as they positioned it at the head of the operating table. She waited for them to retire and strolled slowly along the row of clone tanks, running her hands along the smooth surface of the glass. While the surgical team busied themselves hooking up various pieces of equipment to the ark and its cradle. The glass was warm to the touch. It vibrated slightly in resonance with the machinery that fed life giving nutrients and oxygen through the tubes.

  She stopped and running her hands around one the tubes studied its contents intently. “They’re beautiful aren’t they? Expensive, but beautiful, in a terrible sort of way. To think one could be judged and found wanting only to return and be given a limitless number of chances, subject to the availability of a suitable credit rating of course.” she smiled demurely at the neurosurgeon. “Do you have a back-up on file in case of accidents?” he shook his head impassively. “So your irreplaceable them?”

  He cocked his head slightly to one side and stared back at her. “No one’s irreplaceable, but I’m the best at what I do, I accept no imitations and neither should you.”

  She threw her head back laughing and allowed her hood to fall back off her head. “I’m beginning to like you in a strange sort of way, let’s bring him in and see how good you really are.”

  He nodded and gesture to the surgical team to wheel in the patient.

  “I’d best talk to him before you begin.” she pulled herself away from the clone tanks and walked slowly back towards the operating table with him. “Ninety-five percent, they are the best odds you can give me?”

  He nodded. “Nothing in this field, especially when pushing at the boundaries, is a hundred percent certain. The odds are as good as they are going to get.”

  She stopped and turned to face him. “Very well. I take it you’ve secured a memory engram as a back up and have one of our oven-ready friends back there prepped and ready to imprint, in case anything goes wrong?” she cast a sidelong glance back towards the bubbling clone tanks.

  “Purely as a precaution of course, we’re not expecting any complications this time.”

  “Good, because I would be very upset if we lost the original.” flashes of red shot through her golden hair before it turned black as night. “Very upset, do you understand me?”

  “Absolutely, so I suggest you stop trying to unnerve me before the operation, not that it’ll work of course.”

  She looked at him quizzically, staring intently into his eyes, searching for some kind of emotional response and found none.

  “You’re enhancements are mere child’s play, party tricks compared to mine. I feel less emotion than any android, so don’t waste your breath trying to intimate me.” he smiled coldly back at her.

  She grinned back at him showing her white teeth. “Well you're a cold bastard indeed, few if any have spoken like that to the High Priestess and lived. What makes you think I I’ll keep you around after you have served your purpose?”

  It was his turn to laugh. “Nothing, nothing at all, but who knows what I’ve built into the neural interface I’m about to put in that precious brain of his? A failsafe perhaps, to guarantee my safety? Let’s just say I’m a useful man to have around in case any complications arise and leave it at that.”

  “Well, so long as we both understand each other, I don’t think there’ll be any need for any unpleasantness do you? By the way what did you do w
ith the test subjects?”

  “Don’t worry there won’t be any lose ends, they and the clone have been disposed of and sent to recycling.”

  “Good and what about your surgical team?” she added flicking her head nonchalantly in their direction.

  He looked dispassionately at them as they finished prepping the patient. “No one there that can’t be replaced.”

  “No lose ends then?”

  “None whatsoever. I’ll deal with it personally once we know the outcome of the operation. If you’re going to talk him, I suggest you do it now, were ready to put him under.”

  She nodded silently and turned her attention to where old man, Anderson, the prophet, was lying on the operating table. She strolled casually across the short space of sterile white deck that separated her from him and stood at the head of the table beside him, the medical team withdrawing in deference to her. She looked down at his face and smiled, running the palm of her left hand gently across his forehead, softly brushing his grey hair back. She could see the fear and uncertainty in his dark brown eyes.

  “What troubles you Brother Anderson?”

  “Are you sure this is the chosen path? Did you not say to me once that Malstrom was a multi-headed beast of Babylon, that will not survive the fall of human-kind? How then can they now be the servants of the faith?”

  “Did not the founders foretell of the fall and did they not say that the mightiest to fall would, at the moment of their destruction, be reborn in fire as a mighty servant of the chosen people. That together with the Priestess and the Prophet they would blaze a path of righteousness across the galaxy?” Red streaks flickered through her hair as she spoke.

  He licked his lips nervously and tried to smile. “Yes, but what if the operation goes wrong, what if we’re wrong?”

  She took his hand in hers and squeezed it tightly. “Don’t not let your faith fail you now, many have been called to judgement and found wanting to bring us to this point, we cannot let their sacrifices be for nothing. We have been baptised in their blood and shall be reborn anew in the heart of this vessel to lead the Brethren along the glorious path of salvation.”

  He squeezed her hand back. “I will master my fear for the greater good of the Brethren and become an instrument of the faith.”

  She released his hand and placed it back on the table beside him. “Good, when this is over you will be fully synchronised with the data core, the ark of our faith. A master of probabilities and possible futures, one who holds the fate of worlds in his hands. Together we will reforge the future of humankind and all the other races in the Galaxy.” she leant over him and pressed her lips against his. “Imagine it Brother Anderson, you will be closer to the will of the Ancients than any of us, even me. It will be far more intimate and intense than anything you have yet experienced in your years of service to me. I envy you, the entire Brethren envies you.”

  She stepped back and nodded to the anaesthetist He injected an opaque fluid into one of the drips they had attached to Anderson and waited for it to take effect. His eyelids flicked and began to fall as he slipped away into a deep drug induced coma. He forced them open with one last conscious effort and turned to Tracy.

  “We have unleashed the instruments of chaos and order upon the galaxy, but only we can balance them. I will not fail you.” Then he was gone, lost in the dark deep night, of dreamless drug induced sleep.

  She stayed for a while watching them go about their well rehearsed work with ruthless efficiency. Carefully they slid a stainless steel frame over his unconscious body that encased the whole of his upper torso and locked his head and spine into a fixed position. Then they tensioned the holding bolts around his temples, before removing the front most third of the operating table. Next they rotated and raised the frame into position to give them full, unrestricted three hundred and sixty degree access, to the upper portion of his skull.

  The neurosurgeons hand never faltered as he wielded the scalpel with cold unerring precision, slicing cleanly through the flesh and down to the hard bone of the cranium. Deftly they peeled back his scalp and clamped it out of the way. He put down the scalpel and picked up the surgical laser cutter. Carefully he began to cut around the exposed section of the cranium. The cutter had been calibrated to the exact thickness of his bone, its inbuilt sensors providing continuous feedback, to ensure that no accidental damage was inflicted on the precious contents of his skull. Slowly and carefully he worked his way around and back to the original staring point of his incision. A small robot arm attached to the frame slid down towards the top of Anderson’s skull extending three skeletal metal fingers each of which terminated in a small, but powerful cluster, of five flexible suction cups. They located and attached themselves to the exposed bone and delicately lifted away the skull cap he had cut out of Anderson’s cranium exposing the pulsating brain beneath. A sterile surgical forcefield around the frame keeping it free from the risk of infection.

  He flicked the magnifying lenses back down over his glasses, and zoomed in for a better look checking for potential damage around the incision. He turned and smiled at the Priestess. “So far so good, a text book craniotomy, now for the interesting bit.”

  A second robotic arm came to life. Instead of thin skeletal metal fingers it terminated in a smooth clear Perspex dome that matched exactly the section of bone the other arm had removed. Slowly, deliberately it aligned itself with the exposed section of Anderson’s brain and descended steadily towards it. The inner surface of the dome glistened as the lights of the operating theatre reflected off thousands of gossamer like wires that criss-crossed its underside in a complex web. The dome positioned itself in the opening he’d cut and stopped, barely a couple of millimeters above the outer layer of his brain. A static charge shot through the dome causing the gossamer like web to detached itself and drift gently down onto the surface of his brain like a feather caught in the early morning breeze. The arm carrying the Dome withdrew. He removed Perspex shell from it tossing it casually into the trash can beside the operating table. Then picked up the Nanobot injector array off one of the trays beside him and started attaching it to the arm.

  “This may take some time.” He said turning to the Priestess. “The nanobots will latch onto the interface array and integrate it into his brain in the meantime we need to build in a hard wired diagnostic interface here.” he tapped the back of Anderson’s neck where the top of his spine joined his skull with his forefinger.

  “Why?”

  “Purely as a precaution in case anything goes wrong, but also it will take him time to perfect the art of synchronisation. I estimate a hard wired link will reduce the acclimatisation time by a factor of sixty percent, after which he should be able to do it wirelessly. You can hide it with a high collar if you wish.”

  “Or we could display it openly as a mark of the true prophet.” she added. “How long do you estimate it will take?

  He lowered the arm, carrying the nano injector, carefully into the opening in Anderson’s skull and activated the holoprojectors. A three dimensional holographic representation of his brain, the interface overlaying it, the injectors, plus a virtual keyboard and twin joysticks hovered in the air in front of him.

  “At least eight hours, but you should never rush an artist.” he said as he manipulated the injectors with the holographic controls. Firing carefully targeted batches of individually programmed nanobots into the skulls opening. Watching as they latched onto the gossamer filaments, dragging them deeper and deeper into Anderson’s brain. “If I was you I’d get some rest, I’ll let you know the outcome as soon as we’re done here.”

  “Very well I expect you to come directly to my quarters and give me a personal report. As soon as you’ve tied up all the loose ends here.” she said curtly throwing her hood back over her head and leaving the room with the four acolytes in tow.

  “My pleasure.” he muttered under his breath as he gestured to his assistant to insert the hard wire socket into the base of Anderson�
�s skull. Instructing the next batch of nanobots to draw the interface down through the brain tissues to the top of the spine and make the necessary connections.

  Twelve hours later Anderson was in an isolation unit in the ships main infirmary, heavily sedated and in recovery, and the neurosurgeon was standing outside her personal quarters.

  She was awoken by the guards calling her on the vidcom. She slid out of her bed and slipped her purple robe over her naked body before acknowledging them, and following her instructions they stood aside and allowed him to enter. A heavy silence hung in the air until the door was safely sealed behind him.

  “Well?” she stared at him intently. “You're four hours overdue were there complications?”

  He allowed a smile to flicker across his lips and shook his head. “No, but like I told you, you can’t rush a work of art. The interface is fully integrated into his neural structures we can begin the acclimatisation and synchronisation as soon as the sedatives wear off.”

  “Good, time is short, we need him up and running by the time we return to Malstrom’s home world.”

  “Which gives me how long exactly?”

  “The crew are plotting the wormhole jumps as we speak, you’ve got thirty-six hours maximum.”

  He sighted. “Well perhaps I was a little previous disposing of the rest of the team in that case.”

  She raised her right eyebrow.

  “A fault in the post-op decontamination cycle, the computer registered them as contaminates with tragic consequences.”

  She pulled him towards her allowing her robe to slip open and pressed her lips briefly against his. “Well I’m sure you’ll find a way...” she paused.

  “Thane, the names Thane.” he said completing the sentence for her.

  “Thane.” she continued pulling her robe around herself again and smiling. “After all we have many, many, ways, of rewarding the faithful.”

  He smiled back. “I don’t for one minute doubt that you do or that I could be judged and found wanting as soon as you consider I can safely be disposed of.”

  Her hair and eyes flickered briefly with flashes of red and orange. “Well in that case I suggest you continue to make yourself useful and ensure that Anderson fulfils his function, failsafe or no failsafe.”

  He bowed politely and withdrew making his way back to Anderson, calculating the odds of a successful integration in thirty-six hours, evaluating all the possible strategies for speeding up the process, as he went.