by Bob Mayer
“All-Life,” Kray whispered. “We are All-Life.”
These were the creatures of legend and dark night tales in his home world, vaguely familiar to Kray and the others from a collective subconscious, yet far more horrifying than imagination could have conjured. Dragon, Naga, Cthulhu, how did the humans know of these things?
There was no time to muse as the battle was joined.
The humans protecting Kray fired at the worms, splattering them. But there were so many. And more were dropping from dragons and leaping off the spiders skittering underfoot.
A powerful impulse over-rode every thought. Kray’s hand reached up and flipped open the cover of a small bulge in the center of his chest. A red button strobed, demanding his conditioning to act. To push it.
Kray felt one of the parasites bore through the articulated back of the suit’s knee. His hand was vibrating, determined to push the button. He flipped the cover shut. The Swarm parasite pressed its way between the flesh of the back his thigh and the suit, slithering up. He felt it bore into his back, wrapping around his spine, the pain sharp and then gone.
His mind went blank for a second. There was something else in him. Something that was more powerful than his mind. That was now in control. Something alive.
He became still.
As did the other humans as they were subsumed.
In other cargo bays, as the Metamorphosis overwhelmed the humans, the survivors in red suits went with their Airlia programming, hitting the red buttons.
Nuclear weapons detonated, wiping out all around them.
The only indication of these blasts by the Airlia were spouts of flame out of portals. Dozens of them. On board talons and motherships, Airlia cheered.
******
Deep inside the Core, in the mass of living material that was the Swarm brain, a shivering pulse passed through. It wasn’t radio or light or anything on the electromagnetic spectrum. It wasn’t an FTLT transmission although it had traveled almost instantaneously over a vast distance. It was primal, the very essence of the connection of the Swarm consciousness.
It was unprecedented.
A Battle Core near the trailing edge of the Orion Nebula had just ceased to exist.
Billions of Swarm and the Core gone. In an instant.
It was not a message; it was a subtraction from the Swarm felt by all Swarm across the galaxies in a ripple that moved faster than the speed of light.
This Swarm Battle Core reacted immediately. All warships were recalled. They broke off battle, racing back to the Core. In doing so they ceased firing and the Airlia were able to extract a terrible price in destroyed Swarm warships. The weapons pods were lowered, red, living material flowing into the spaces they’d occupied to seal the surface.
*****
The Airlia Fleet admiral was startled at this sudden development and feared a ploy. Or perhaps the teardrops had worked? Had the humans actually achieved their mission and disabled some critical part inside the Core with the backpack nukes? No Core had ever been breached or captured so it was unknown what the humans were facing in there.
The surface eruptions indicated there were successes.
*****
Kray was walking stiffly in concert with other humans. Not in control of his body. Being directed by the thing inside him wrapped around his spinal column. Controlling his nervous system. It didn’t control his brain. It was akin to the deep sleep where he could remember and think but do nothing. Except his body was doing as directed by the Swarm.
He entered a wide corridor. It was so long he couldn’t see the far end.
He shuffled along to his fate.
He mentally said a prayer for his fellow humans, for those who had died and even for this thing inside him.
*****
The Battle Core shifted course. Not by much, but enough to be noticed by the Airlia. It was no longer headed for Fleet Headquarters. The Admiral ordered her motherships and talons to disengage.
Teardrop was working.
*****
The loss of Metamorphosis destroyed in the explosions was inconsequential to the Swarm. Eighteen percent of outer cargo holds were destroyed. Not enough to make the Core battle ineffective.
Another detonation.
However, that was not the reason for the sudden change.
The Core shimmered briefly then disappeared into FTLT.
REVOLUTION
NORTH VALLEY, EARTH15
“You have five minutes, Bren, not from this world,” Arcturus said. “Tell me of where you came from and why you hate the Airlia so much.”
Arcturus was lying on his back, arms behind his head. The damp ground didn’t seem to bother him. Bren was seated, legs stretched out in front. “It was a long time ago.”
Arcturus chuckled. “Isn’t that how many stories begin? Long ago and far away?”
EARTH4, CENTAURUS SPIRAL ARM, MILKY WAY GALAXY
TWELVE POINT FIVE MILLENNIA EARLIER (thereabouts)
The fourth planet was in that sweet spot, the narrow orbit designated the Goldilocks Zone for humans and those living organisms like them. Not too close to its star where water would boil off. Not too distant where water would be frozen. The world had once been blue and green, a sparkling jewel which indicated life flourished, but now the land was scorched and the oceans dark and almost lifeless. The sky was overcast with a winter that would have no end for many millennia.
This was the by-product of the war, actually a revolt, against the alien overlords, the Airlia, by the humans. While there had been many earlier wars amongst the humans, events which the Airlia had considered training and sometimes instigated through subterfuge, this was the end of decades of secret alliances and coordination among the humans all around the planet, culminating in a unified revolt against the Airlia.
Years of battling, billions of human dead against thousands of Airlia, it came down to a final assault on the last alien outpost. This was a walled compound a mile and a half long by a mile wide. Inside rested an Airlia mothership; cigar shaped, a mile long and a quarter mile in beam at the center, resting on a cradle made of the same black metal.
Hundreds of thousands of humans were attacking, taking horrendous losses against the alien weapons, but breaching the wall in several spots. They were led by teams of God-Killers, because for as long as any could remember, the Airlia had been considered Gods.
Until they weren’t.
The mothership was stranded, the surviving Airlia trapped because their main computer, the master guardian, located elsewhere, had fallen to the humans the previous month. The humans had remotely disabled the ship’s controls. But there was something in that ship, something that was now the remaining humans only hope for survival on a dying world: the Grail, with its activating stones, the umin and thummin. This was the promise of eternal life which the Airlia had held out to humans for as long as anyone could recall.
But in this last effort, their final battle, the humans failed. The Grail was destroyed by the last surviving Airlia, who died in the process.
The humans had won the revolt and lost their future in the process.
NORTH VALLEY, EARTH15
“Yet here you are,” Arcturus said as Bren finished her quick summation about her home world.
“There is more,” Bren said.
“Of course.” Arcturus sat up. “There is always more. But time for us to be on our way. Five minutes is up.” He stood stiffly and stretched his back. “I have not run like this in hundreds of years. It is both encouraging that I still can and discouraging that it hurts more than I remember.”
He loped off, Bren following, on a path she couldn’t see, but he obviously knew. They were on the side of the western ridge, a half mile below the sharp crest. He kept a steady pace, more than a jog, that ate distance. Each time it seemed as if they were blocked by rocks or impenetrable forest or a stream torrenting down from the high ridgeline, he unerringly found a way around, through or over. At times Bren could make out the path, but
often it wasn’t visible until Arcturus took it.
He abruptly stopped and Bren almost ran into him.
“What is wrong?”
Arcturus looked up into the night sky as if he saw something. He held a hand up, silencing her and cocked his head.
Bren waited, trying to ascertain what had brought about this reaction. She had no sense of danger. After what seemed like a long time, but was only a minute, Arcturus lowered his gaze. “Curious.”
“What is?”
“Change. Things are changing. Come.” He ran, Bren following.
After a minute, though Bren slowed, glancing over her shoulder. She stopped and turned, drawing her sword.
“What is it?” Arcturus asked.
“We’re being followed,” Bren said.
“Are we?”
Bren was trying to see in the darkness. “Someone is back there. Or something.”
“If you’d shown this awareness on the Lion’s Road the ambush might not have happened, would it?”
“So, we are being followed? Your beast?”
Arcturus shrugged. “If so, we are safe. If not? All the more reason for us to keep running.” He took off.
They reached a level stretch where the narrow, single-track ran straight and level through tall trees. Arcturus glanced over his shoulder. “How did your people learn the Airlia were not Gods?” he asked.
“They began acting too human,” Bren said. She wasn’t breathing hard, but her muscles burned from the hours of movement. A headache pulsed, not as bad as it had been, but still painful. The sense of being followed had faded.
Arcturus laughed. “A great flaw. Anything specific?”
“They asked too much and gave too little. When they didn’t get what they asked for, they took. We too had a Tally.”
“Sadly inevitable. Power corrupts.” Arcturus suddenly halted once more, holding up a fist. His head turned to and fro, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed.
Bren did the same, smelling the forest, the wet earth. “Smoke,” she said in a low voice.
“They’ve stopped,” Arcturus said. “The wargs would continue, even unto death. But the Shakur are merely human without corrupted brains. They must eat and rest. That is good. We will be there before them as promised and we can take ten-minute breaks.”
“Perhaps one of them knows these paths and they follow us?” Bren said, looking at their backtrack.
“No. They are in the valley next to the Lion’s Road,” Arcturus said. “Do you wish to check your device and insure the ka is still with them?”
Bren retrieved the disk and activated it. The arrow pointed into the valley. “It is down there. Perhaps we should try to retrieve the ka and sword in the dark? Sneak into their camp?”
“They will expect that,” Arcturus said. “Especially since the ambush they left behind has not rejoined them. They will know someone is following.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I am not a military man,” Arcturus said. “I was just pointing out the obvious. I would suggest waiting.”
“How far is Wormehill Tower?” Bren asked.
“You don’t remember?”
“We came up the Lion’s Road.”
“So. You were there.”
Bren sighed. “I’m tired of verbal jousting, old man.”
“I have not been jousting,” Arcturus said.
“How long?”
“We will get there when we get there.” Arcturus began to run.
“Informative.” Bren took off after him.
*****
“There is another story due,” Arcturus said as they halted for their next break. He laid down, hands behind his head, looking up at the remaining moon, Osiris.
Bren sat. “Who are you?”
“That is a question, not a story.”
“You already know much more about me, than I of you,” Bren said. “You are very aware of things you should not be aware of.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard of me,” Arcturus said. “As unobtrusive as I try to be, I have been around so long, there have been stories.”
“The Archaic.”
“Surely you suspected,” Arcturus said. “A corruption of my name. Some things get lost over the years, others things are twisted.”
“Just stories,” Bren said. “That there is an old man who wanders the planet. That he is old as the stones. Mothers have made him into a monster to scare children at night, like the Nagil.”
Arcturus chuckled. “Monsters. There are real monsters, you know. There are also beings that we fear as monsters, yet they are not. How could an old man walking about be a monster? What harm could he do? What else have you heard of this Archaic?”
“That he knows magic and worships the gods of the earth itself. That he commands foul beasts to do his bidding.”
Arcturus chuckled. “I know not magic and I do not worship any god.”
“But you do have a beast doing your bidding,” she pointed out.
“Isengrim does as she chooses.”
“But you can speak to her.”
“In a manner,” Arcturus said.
“How old are you?”
“Not as old as the rocks, but I was here before the Airlia came.”
Bren gave a sharp look. “That’s impossible.”
“Yet here I am.”
“That doesn’t mean you were here before. The Airlia brought humans here. As they did my people to my world. They brought humans into being. Manufactured us.”
Arcturus turned his head to look at her. “When you defeated the Airlia, what did you learn?”
“The truth.”
“Ah! Truth.” He sat up. “You mean the truth you just told me? That the Airlia made humans? Why do you believe it? Because it is what the Airlia believe? Rather what they want you to believe?”
“It was in their guardian computer. In their archives. Why would they lie about that to themselves?”
“It is not a lie to forget things,” Arcturus said. “Do you know how old the universe is?”
“It has always been.”
“Has it?” Arcturus shrugged. “Perhaps. I used to be told I tended philosophical instead of practical. You and Markus have been on this planet not a short time, correct?”
“Yes. And we have never run into you before. I find that odd.”
“Because I chose not to meet you until now,” Arcturus said. “You’ve seen kingdoms rise and fall. Think of that on a much, much larger scale. Kingdoms among the stars. The Airlia rule a large empire, but even that is dwarfed by the vastness of the universe. But let us be more specific. The humans on this planet are uniting and rebelling against the Airlia just as they did on your planet. But the people here see them as corrupt gods, not what you know. It is a pattern you and Markus have initiated several times since you arrived. Many have died in fruitless assaults on the Airlia.”
“Not fruitless,” Bren defended. “They are less powerful after each revolt. As you say you saw, we took Wormehill from them and it has not been re-occupied. Thus, they are weaker.”
Arcturus nodded. “Perhaps. But that might have more to do with their own poor leadership and incompetence than your efforts. Do human lives mean nothing to you? You killed those Shakur easily enough.”
“They passed into death peacefully. More than I can say for how Markus died.”
“Tell me what other truth you learned about the Airlia?” Arcturus asked.
“That they brought us to our world. Planted us there. As they planted these humans here. Which means you cannot be from before the arrival of the Airlia.”
“And why do the Airlia ‘plant’ humans on worlds?”
“To be soldiers in their war against an enemy they call the Swarm or the Ancient Enemy. That is the purpose of the Tally.”
“True enough,” Arcturus said. “What do you know of the Swarm?”
“The Airlia battle them. The Airlia claim the Swarm kill all intelligent life. It could just be an excuse since
none have seen the Swarm.”
“No human on this planet has seen the Swarm, true. You consider the possibility that the Swarm might be a lie, but what you learned about humans from the Airlia guardian is not a lie?”
“If you know something different, tell me.”
“I know the Swarm are very real.”
“What are they?”
“The Airlia consider them an intergalactic virus. They don’t know where the Swarm came from or what the Swarm’s goal is, other than to eradicate Scale life.”
“Intelligent life,” Bren said. “You used the Airlia term. There wasn’t much information in the guardian about other species.”
“What is intelligent life?” Arcturus asked.
Bren waved that off. “You ask a question that has been debated among the big heads with nothing better to do.”
“It’s a very important question,” Arcturus said. “Does making war on one’s own species indicate intelligence? Does making war on another species considered intelligent indicate the war-maker is intelligent?”
“You sound like an All-Lifer now.”
“They are an interesting sect,” Arcturus said. “Imagine if all humans were like that?”
“We’d be slaves.”
“To who?”
“Those whoever didn’t feel the same way.”
“Unlike what you are now?”
Bren didn’t answer.
“Are you not slaves to whoever is stronger? Does that make the more powerful entity better?”
“Easy questions to ask when one isn’t being oppressed,” Bren said.
Arcturus asked: “Did that information about humans dishearten you? To learn the Airlia made you?”
“Of course,” Bren said.
“Do you really believe it?”
It was Bren’s turn to frown. “It was in their Guardian computer. In their records. We learned of fifteen other worlds seeded with humans by the Airlia. This was one of them. We are all experiments.”
