The Stars Like Gods

by G. S. Jennsen

For a second the sight reminded her of the natives from the simex. Primitives with their long guns drawn bravely on the alien invaders. The natives hadn’t stood a chance, and had suffered horrifically for their bravery. Would her people fare any better?

  Abruptly the cage’s violent thrashings stilled. The Rasu dissolved into a gelatinous puddle of aubergine fluidic metal in the center of the cage. Not in surrender, she felt certain, but perhaps to regroup and reevaluate.

  She strode up to Lance. “Let’s not waste any time. Tell the cargo transport to come pick up our prisoner.”

  23

  * * *

  CONCEPTUAL RESEARCH TESTING FACILITY

  Mirai

  Sixteen tricked-out combat dynes surrounded the meter-thick glass composite cage with their weapons armed, raised and ready. Surrounding the dynes and the cage, a double force-field barrier rated to withstand six hundred megajoules of energy crackled and hummed. Surrounding the dynes, the cage and the force-field barrier stood four walls constructed of twenty centimeters of hyper-strong metamaterials.

  A set of blast doors that opened and closed in 0.4 seconds constituted the only exit from the chamber.

  The location of the custom prison was a testing facility for in-atmosphere engines and explosive equipment on the outskirts of Mirai Two, which had been graciously loaned to them by the Mirai Industry Division, Conceptual Research Department. By Dashiel, in other words.

  Nika took a brief minute to ready herself. She’d somehow managed to convince the others to allow her to take the lead in the initial interrogation under the theory that it was less an interrogation and more a diplomatic negotiation, cage and weapons notwithstanding. Now she had to make it count.

  Dashiel, the Justice and External Relations Advisors, Lance, two of his officers and another six combat dynes had joined her in the open space between the force-field barrier and the blast doors. Everyone in the room was armed, though she doubted it would matter if the alien escaped. Another half-dozen Advisors watched from a lounge elsewhere in the building and the rest from a conference room at the Pavilion.

  She stepped forward and indicated for Lance’s officer to activate the intercom. “My name is Nika Kirumase. Do you have a name, Rasu?”

  The alien undulated like oil in water, snaking from corner to corner to assess the nature of its confines once again. “I am JRY22c-sub6.”

  The artificial voice of the translator lent a cold, calculating tenor to the words, which seemed about right.

  She smiled, just a little. “Do you mind if I call you ‘Jerry’?”

  “I am imprisoned. I lack freedom. Your term for me matters not.”

  “I understand why you feel this way. I assume you understand why we’ve needed to take extreme precautions. I, and those standing behind me, are Asterions. Do you know what an Asterion is?”

  “Do you?”

  She caught herself before she flinched, frowned, gasped or gave any other outward sign of surprise, but it was definitely not the response she’d anticipated. “Explain your answer.”

  “If you were capable of comprehending my explanation, my answer would no longer be needed. I will instead give you the answer you were expecting: Asterions are a species of hybrid synthetic-organic beings of moderate sapience who practice self-directed evolution.”

  Moderate sapience? She bit back a tart retort; a diplomat never got offended or angry unless they intended to do so. She didn’t so much ‘remember’ this rule as instinctively know it.

  “Am I correct in deducing that you know of our species because you were once a part of a larger whole? Specifically, a whole located in what we’ve designated Sector IV-C of the Gennisi galaxy? Is it correct for me to state that when you are connected to other Rasu, you share their knowledge, and they share yours?”

  “A base understanding of our nature.”

  Maris sent her a ping from the lounge. Arrogant prick, isn’t it?

  She ignored the ping. “Then tell us about your nature, Jerry. Enlighten us, so we may understand it better.”

  The Rasu partially solidified into a serpentine shape and slithered closer to the side of the cage she faced. “There is no whole, there is only purpose and intent. We are each whole for our purpose at any interval. We are each….” It paused, and a ripple slid along its body. “Your crude language does not permit proper elaboration.”

  Interesting. An interpretation routine was translating the Rasu’s ‘speech’ into Communis, but while she doubted the Rasu could speak Communis, it appeared to understand the language sufficiently well to choose its own words with the translation in mind. She filed the tidbit away.

  “I’ll accept your answer, for now. Do you know why we captured you?”

  “We take your units.”

  “Yes. Why do you take them?”

  “Because we can.”

  “That’s not a very good answer, Jerry. Why do you demand thousands upon thousands of our people? What do you use them for?”

  “I will not answer this question.”

  “Fine, we can revisit it later.” She strolled along the length of the facing side of the cage, feeling the prickle of power from the force field teasing her skin. “You crashed on the planet we found you on several years ago. I’m sure it took you time to re-form yourself, but once you did so, you possessed the capability to escape the planet’s atmosphere and return to the Rasu stronghold, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  The Rasu remained silent.

  “Why spend years alone on a planet hosting no technology and no species intelligent enough to interact with? Why didn’t you return to your own kind? Would your masters have punished you for failing in your mission? Shunned you? Melted you down and scavenged you for parts—?”

  “They would have erased me. The thought which exists as JRY22c-sub6 would have been no more.”

  She took a single step closer to the cage. “Would they have done so as a punishment?”

  “You misunderstand. You cannot understand.”

  “I understand a great deal about being erased, Jerry. No life should ever be erased.”

  In its current form the Rasu did not display eyes, but she swore it stared at her. “Not punishment. Simply existence. My return would have resulted in my thought being erased because…because a thing is itself.”

  Not a ‘thing’…a Rasu. A Rasu was itself, which was defined as purpose and intent…. “Are you saying the Rasu are a hive mind? A collective consciousness?”

  “Your meager language continues to not permit proper elaboration. We are what we need to be, when we need to be it. One, many, one again, many again. Many become one, one become many. The purpose defines the existence.”

  Oh…. “You don’t want to join with other Rasu again, because your purpose and thus your existence would then change. You’ve come to value your independence. Your separateness.”

  “It is…freeing. Time in one state, my own state, has brought…satisfaction. Unexpected.”

  The statement revealed a great deal about their prisoner, but it also revealed something about Rasu behavior. It told her they rarely spent long periods of time cut off from other Rasu. The stronghold didn’t merely serve as their bastion in this galaxy, it was literally their home base. Those who left on missions must return often; those missions must be limited in time and distance.

  After only a couple of months separated from its kind, this Rasu had begun to develop a mind of its own, with its own desires, its own purpose and intent. By not returning to the stronghold, it was…Lance was right. It was rebelling.

  “Jerry, if I agree to grant your freedom to you, will you agree to answer all of my questions?”

  She motioned behind her to quiet the protests currently erupting and temporarily muted all pings. “There will be many conditions, of course, and your freedom won’t come immediately.

  “But if I promise you that in due time, you will be able to leave this cage and return to the planet we fo
und you on, or wander the stars, or go someplace new, will you tell me what the Rasu are doing with my people? Will you tell me why, and how we can protect ourselves from the Rasu fleets and weapons?”

  With her choice of words, she began to subtly separate Jerry from the collective Rasu. To make them other, and Jerry not. To make Jerry not only individual, but special.

  The alien lost its form to whirl around its cage in renewed agitation. “Why would you free me?”

  “We don’t want to keep you prisoner. We only want to protect our people. Help us do this, and the reason for your imprisonment will cease to exist.”

  “This word, ‘promise.’ I comprehend its definition, but it has no meaning for Rasu. Free me, and I will provide you answers.”

  “I can’t do that, Jerry. I have seen the capabilities, the strength and power, of the Rasu. I respect your strength and power, but it means you are dangerous to us. You, Jerry, can harm us. I can’t trust you yet. Trust—do you understand this word?”

  “It is the other half of the whole created when joined with ‘promise.’ It gives ‘promise’ its power.”

  She hoped that behind her, Dashiel was smiling the way she was in her heart. “An astute explanation. If you cooperate and answer my questions, then I will be able to trust you—trust you not to harm us when I free you. You earn my trust, and I will fulfill my promise. You have the power here, Jerry. The power to earn your freedom.”

  Silence vibrated in the crackling air like a lit match waiting to spark an inferno. The alien spun around itself to create an oscillating knot of dark, shimmering metal and moved to within a few scant centimeters of the glass.

  “I will consider your offer.”

  “Thank you, Jerry. We’ll give you some time to do so.”

  Dashiel reached out to squeeze Nika’s hand as they strode down the hallway to the lounge. “You were amazing.”

  She slowed down her nervous pace to draw even with him. “I hope so. Stars, it was stressful. Did I seriously used to do that all the time?”

  He chuckled under his breath. “Not that, exactly.”

  As soon as the door to the lounge closed behind everyone, Katherine wheeled on Nika. “You had no authority to offer it freedom. We cannot let this monster go!”

  “Not while it can still warn its cohorts, no. We’ll deal with the Rasu stronghold first.”

  “I’ll put aside for the moment the ludicrous suggestion that we’re somehow going to ‘deal with’ the Rasu stronghold, as if it’s an administrative snafu needing sorting. What’s stopping this alien from contacting the Rasu in the next galaxy over? Because those exist, right? Rasu stretching from here to the end of the universe?”

  The woman really didn’t need to resort to hyperbole when the truth was plenty overwhelming enough. “The Rasu told the Guides they controlled hundreds of galaxies, yes.”

  Lance leaned against the refreshment counter and grimaced. “Katherine raises a good point. Assuming for the sake of argument that we do somehow neutralize the Rasu threat in this galaxy, if we release this ‘Jerry’ we risk turning a win into a catastrophic loss when it brings down the wrath of infinitely more Rasu on us.”

  “Don’t worry, Lance. I lost my memories, not my good sense. Dashiel, tell them what your research team has discovered.”

  “Certainly.” He manifested four panes along one of the walls, where everyone could see them. “The team has been combing through the avalanche of signals generated by the Rasu stronghold and other structures in their stellar system. Identifying the local traffic versus inbound/outbound, identifying source structures where possible, and so on.

  “They’ve learned a lot that might become important soon, but Nika’s referring to the intergalactic communications traffic. The team believes the large structures orbiting the Rasu’s star at a distance of 0.7 AU are acting as, in effect, targeted broadcast antennae. The data we captured included several signal bursts toward neighboring galaxies in our local cluster. While the data was being recorded, one of the structures also received a similar burst. Since we weren’t watching for it, we can’t determine from where it originated.”

  “What does any of that have to do with our guest?” Katherine sneered over the word ‘guest.’

  “The team thinks—and I think—it means they don’t converse instantaneously with distant Rasu. They use these antennae structures for such communications.”

  “They don’t use quantum entanglement for communication? Why the hells not? They clearly are facile in quantum physics and mechanics.”

  Nika shrugged. “If Jerry agrees to my terms, I’ll ask it why. But my instincts tell me it has something to do with hive minds, control and individuality.”

  Dashiel arched an eyebrow with an appreciative nod; judging by Katherine’s pouty expression, however, she missed the point entirely. “Regardless, I don’t like it.”

  “Acknowledged. We have time to work out conditions for its release we can all live with. And if we don’t deal with the Rasu stronghold, it will be a moot point.”

  Julien downed an energy drink and grabbed another from the refrigeration unit. “Whatever it takes to get the alien to talk, eh? We could always renege on the deal after we got what we needed from it.”

  Adlai snorted. “You sound like Satair.”

  “Hey, watch the low blows. I’m just pointing out that all options have to be on the table, because we won’t get a second chance at the Rasu.”

  Nika shook her head. “We also won’t get a second chance at gaining this Rasu’s cooperation. We’re not reneging on the deal. I don’t think that’s something I would ever do.”

  Maris pinged her from across the lounge, where she’d settled comfortably into one of the couches. In 700,000 years, you never did.

  “Well, let’s hope your honor doesn’t cost the Dominion its existence.”

  “Colson, aren’t you needed back at the Pavilion?”

  Bless Dashiel for striking back when she shouldn’t, though she did project a steely glare in Katherine’s general direction. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”

  The officer who had been working the intercom system stuck his head in the lounge. “Sorry to interrupt, but the Rasu is saying it wants to take the deal.”

  24

  * * *

  CONCEPTUAL RESEARCH TESTING FACILITY

  “What do the Rasu want with Asterions? Are they experimenting on us? For what purpose?”

  Jerry had thus far answered her questions in a rote, affectless manner. Now, however, it hesitated.

  “Jerry? Why are they experimenting on us?”

  “To learn how you control your offspring, so they can replicate the mechanism.”

  She didn’t glance back in question at those gathered behind her, but only through the application of copious discipline. She’d often ruminated on what the Rasu could possibly need her people for; her morbid imagination had helpfully served up a smorgasbord of horrors, but none had ventured in this particular direction.

  “Asterions don’t have offspring.”

  “Your splinters, shards, duplicates—however you refer to them. The details differ, but the principle remains the same.”

  “You mean our descendants. Progeny and siblings.” Her mind raced. Part of her wanted to obfuscate, to be cagey if not outright lie to their prisoner. But this might be their one chance for real answers, and she could not screw it up. So which tactic wouldn’t screw it up?

  She’d told Dashiel that having her identity and memories stolen from her had made her appreciate the preciousness of truth. If anything stood a chance to light the way out of this mess, it had to be truth.

  “We don’t control them.”

  Jerry oscillated ferociously, spinning up to the roof of its cage and rushing toward her before expanding along the front wall. “You lie.”

  “No. Every new iteration of an Asterion is an independent entity, invested with their own agency and free will. We control nothing.”

  “Then why do you use k
yoseil to drive your minds and bodies?”

  “Because it is an excellent yet safe conductor, it increases the throughput, speed and accuracy of quantum processes and it can store more data more efficiently than similar materials.”

  “Those are minor characteristics at best. Kyoseil is supradimensional and deeply interconnected. It is not merely the ultimate mineral—it is one of the universe’s oldest life forms.”

  Her silence lasted too long; she needed to respond in some way, but she’d been rendered well and truly speechless.

  Jerry’s vacillations stilled, and its eyeless form seemed to probe her for a weakness upon which to strike. “Surely you know this. Or did we vastly overestimate your intelligence and thus your worth? Am I negotiating with primates?”

  “You certainly are not. We guard the secrets of our makeup—our intelligence—quite closely, which should not surprise you. I’m not a scientist myself. Allow me to consult with those who make our biosynthetic physiology their focus so I can better converse with you on this matter. I’ll return soon. In the meantime, if you require anything, inform the watch officer. Thank you.”

  She pivoted with as much composure as she was able to muster and ushered everyone but the watch officer and the security dynes out of the room.

  “What the fuck is Jerry talking about? Dashiel, do you know what fuck it’s talking about?”

  Dashiel looked too flabbergasted himself to take offense at her harsh tone. “There has always been some mystery surrounding how kyoseil functions as it does. We’ve long suspected it has extradimensional properties, because it’s the only way to explain its tremendous storage capabilities, but we’ve always assumed that was the extent of it. As I understand history, in the early days after its discovery, we were so glad it did function the way we needed it to, we didn’t waste time trying to figure out why it did. Later? It’s possible we got sloppy. Not very Asterion of us, I realize.”