Marque of Caine

by Charles E Gannon

  Thumping his stick down harder than he had to as he walked, Thlunroolt was silent for several moments before murmuring, “Humans will be worthy Custodians one day. But if our flaw has been reluctance to act, yours will be excessive zeal to do so. Yet it is my hope that the younglings that crawled up onto the banks today will indeed reclaim some of our lost decisiveness. Or maybe a bit more.”

  Wait, so Thlunroolt hopes today’s younglings will be…well, more like humans? Riordan slowed, reconsidered the deep forest, the rude huts, the absence of advanced tools, the ever-present risk from predators. Until now, he had conceived of Rooaioo’q as a reenactment preserve where a subculture of primitivists could turn their back on modern Dornaani society. But now…

  He stopped, stared at Thlunroolt’s receding, perversely exaggerated hourglass shape. “Rooaioo’q is where Custodians come from. This is how they’re born, how they are raised.”

  The old Dornaani turned. “Not all. But younglings who are spawned here are five times more likely to become Custodians. Those who are also raised here are twenty times more likely. And all of them tend to be the most decisive of their cohort.”

  Riordan nodded. “So this is Alnduul’s home?”

  “No, but Alnduul’s first mentor, a native of this planet, brought out his pupil’s natural decisiveness.”

  Ah. “You.”

  Thlunroolt’s inner eyelids snicked once, quickly. “Yes.” He turned, resumed walking.

  Riordan caught up. “So if you were his mentor, you were a highly placed Custodian. Yet you left to return here? Why?”

  “Besides being my home, it is close to the place I worked.”

  Riordan frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  Thlunroolt’s mouth twisted slightly. He nodded toward the northeast corner of the sky. “Tonight, look there. You will see your stars. Sol, Alpha Centauri, Epsilon Indi.”

  The pieces fell together. “So you were a Senior Mentor of the Terran Oversight group, too.”

  “Yes. Another served in the time between my tenure and Alnduul’s. You met her at Convocation: Third Arbiter Glayaazh.”

  “But you never had a seat on the Collective’s Senior Assembly?”

  “No. In addition to their reluctance to confer such power upon a native of Rooaioo’q, one of the most turbulent episodes in recent history occurred during my time as Senior Mentor.”

  “Which was?”

  “Making the Ktor Assistant Custodians. I foresaw it would be disastrous but was ‘overruled’ by individuals who preferred pandering to the millions of Dornaani who crave a placid existence over a principled one.”

  Riordan started.

  Thlunroolt glanced sideways at him. “This outcome shocks you?”

  “Somewhat, but not as much as the difference between your opinion of your species and the way most of humanity perceives it.”

  “And how does your species perceive ours, human?”

  “Ancient, enigmatic, and, when it comes to your abilities, a bit godlike.”

  Thlunroolt stopped, his head bowed, eyes closed. “We are grave robbers, not gods.”

  Riordan frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Human, we accrued our power by scrounging among the leavings of the past. And in doing so, we lost the vigor to weave a new world out of the whole cloth of the future.”

  His eyes opened. “Human, it is your species that possesses the truly decisive power: the inner drive that pushes you outward, the uncritical confidence in your own immanence and will to create.”

  Caine heard a last-second caesura. “But?”

  “But that confidence can also make a race dangerous. A race capable of limitless creation is also capable of the hubris that comes with it. We traded away that vigor and risk for a serene and longer life. Only later did we discover that without vigor and risk, we were no longer living; we were merely surviving. We became accustomed to food without taste, excitement without vulnerability, accomplishment without sacrifice.”

  He wrung the top of his stick in his hands. “Your species has made the opposite choice: aspirations and dreams over safety. That brings an opposite but equal set of dangers. You imbibe dreams like strong drink. They inspire, they embolden, they intoxicate you with possibilities. But there is a tipping point where they begin to inebriate, distort, delude. And if your avidity for those impossible visions becomes too great, they will ultimately lure you over the precipice of your own limits into a final fall.”

  Thlunroolt shook his shoulders—annoyance? rejection? a desire to be done with the topic?—and started forward again, more briskly than before. Within a minute, they emerged from the ferns that separated the quickeners’ bank from the sandy shore.

  Alnduul and Ssaodralth were walking down the slope toward them.

  Alnduul’s inner nictating lids cycled slowly: recognition, gladness. “So, you have returned to the breeding pool to see the conclusion of the process.”

  Puzzled, Riordan looked at Thlunroolt, then back to Alnduul. “Actually, we were here all day.”

  Alnduul stopped in mid step, turned wide eyes upon his old mentor. “You assured me you would protect him.”

  “The human was in no danger. Indeed, I suspect his scent kept me safe from the qaiyaat.”

  Alnduul’s gills popped open and remained that way. “Levity is inappropriate, cannot lessen the severity of your violation. You know the Senior Arbiters gave express orders that Riordan was not to be exposed to risk. None whatsoever.”

  Thlunroolt planted his stick upon the ground and rested both hands upon the gnarled knob atop it. “So. Do you intend to report me?”

  Alnduul’s lids nictated rapidly. “I am a Custodian. You know I am required to give a full accounting of a visitor’s activities.”

  “I also recall that not all your reports to the Custodians have been painstakingly complete.”

  Alnduul blinked hard, as if trying to clear his vision. “You would stoop to extorting my cooperation, my collusion? You, Thlunroolt?”

  Thlunroolt leaned forward. “Is it extortion to simply ask that, just as I have promised you my silence, you promise me yours in this instance?” He glanced sideways at Caine. “Besides, unless I miss my guess, you mean to include the human in your project, which will necessitate expanding the scope of my silence.”

  Riordan looked from one Dornaani to the other. Extortion? Silence? Project? What the hell are they talking about?

  The two glared at each other until Alnduul drifted two fingers through the air. “We are agreed, then.”

  Riordan shook his head. “Wait a minute—”

  Thlunroolt wasn’t listening, remained focused on Alnduul. “So, it is as I thought. You have not informed Caine Riordan of your project—”

  Riordan raised his voice. “Stop. Both of you. What, exactly, is this project?”

  Alnduul let his hands descend toward the ground: reassurance, de-escalation, calming. “Caine Riordan, I shall explain, to the extent that I may, when we are back aboard Olsloov.” He turned to Ssaodralth. “Hasten back to the shuttle. Prepare it for immediate return.”

  “Are we not remaining here to—?”

  “Our plans have changed.” He glanced at Thlunroolt. “Significantly.”

  Ssaodralth made the gesture of farewell and headed back in the direction from whence they had come. Thlunroolt and Alnduul followed at a leisurely pace. The old mentor glanced over at the Caine when he drew abreast of them. “I regret that we shall not finish the spawning day together, human. You were an acceptable companion.” His mouth twisted. “Albeit a restless one, at times.” His expression grew more serious. “It is customary that a visitor such as yourself is given a token of our esteem and appreciation. However, I have no idea what gift might please a human these days.”

  The comment hung in the air: an oblique inquiry. Riordan only had to think a moment. “A book. Particularly one on Dornaani history.”

  Thlunroolt’s mouth flattened against his face slightly. “That is an unusual re
quest. Reasonable—praiseworthy, even—but unusual. Why do you desire such a book?”

  Riordan shrugged. “Except for the synopsis in the self-reference your representatives gave us at Convocation, we don’t know a thing about your past.”

  The old Dornaani’s gills closed with a snuffling sound. “I suspect that was what the Collective intended. And the Custodians are not at liberty to reveal information about any race, not even their own.”

  Riordan nodded. “Well, if histories are off limits, any personal narrative would do. Anything that shows life as it’s lived in your communities.”

  Thlunroolt uttered a wheezing grunt. “‘Communities.’ As if we still have any.”

  Riordan frowned. “But you’ve spoken of capitals, of cities—”

  “Those,” Thlunroolt interrupted, “are population centers. Other than this world and a few others, the Collective is an atomized society.”

  Caine’s palms and soles chilled. “Then how do you function?”

  Thlunroolt stopped, head drooping as he leaned back and pushed his walking stick into the ground. For a moment, he seemed almost human, like one of the antediluvian Chesapeake locals of Caine’s youth, preparing to dispense a crotchety mixture of local lore and dubious advice. “I would be candid with you, Caine Riordan. If you are amenable to that.”

  “I welcome your candor.” Caine meant it. Mostly.

  “Then do not ask how we ‘function.’”

  “Is the question too intrusive?”

  “No, it is pointless, compared to what you should be asking.”

  Riordan managed not to smile in gratitude. “Tell me.”

  Thlunroolt looked up. “How do five separate species all have ‘homeworlds’ within the boundaries of our tiny Accord, an astrographic sphere only one hundred and fifty light-years in diameter? How is it that those races evolved so as to exist at the same moment in time? Why do all of us breathe essentially the same atmosphere? Why do so many worlds happily have just that atmosphere?” He huffed. “These matters should incite more urgent investigation than the technology you arrogated from your attackers. But like most primitive cultures, your reflex is one of stimulus and response: to focus entirely on the issues and actions of the moment.”

  Riordan allowed himself to smile. “Whereas the Collective’s reaction to the war was consistent with the decrepitude of its advanced age: inability to act due to crippling inertia.”

  Thlunroolt’s eyelids cycled through three rapid nictations, followed by a twist of his mouth and a glance at Alnduul. “I see why you have taken a special interest in this one. Very well. Tomorrow should prove most interesting. Return before dawn. And remember: it would be best if both you and your shuttle remained unobserved.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  APRIL 2124

  ROOAIOO’Q, BD +66 582

  The Olsloov’s small, sleek shuttle dropped beneath the buffeting of the upper atmosphere. Riordan turned to Alnduul, his sole companion in the vehicle. “How do I know this isn’t another trip into virtuality?”

  “Because I would have informed you in advance.”

  “You mean, the way you did at Zhal Prime Second-Five?”

  Alnduul’s mouth flattened closer to his face. “I once again ask your forgiveness, but as I explained, that was an experiential necessity.”

  “And the lack of details about what we’re doing today…is that also an ‘experiential necessity’?”

  The Dornaani was silent for several seconds before answering. “You are familiar with the experimental principle of the observer effect?”

  “Of course, the presence and knowledge of the experimenter can change the outcome of the experiment.”

  Alnduul’s eyes closed and opened in slow affirmation. “What we will attempt today requires that you have no advance knowledge of the process or its objective.” Alnduul peered into the holosphere, confirmed that the shuttle was following the green-highlighted path down toward the landing pad. “We shall be arriving soon.”

  Riordan glanced at the terrain in the plot. He saw the breeding pool scroll rapidly out of sight behind them. “Looks like we’re heading away from civilization.”

  Alnduul’s mouth twisted slightly. “If I understand the subtextual question underlying that statement, then yes, our destination is a secret facility.”

  Riordan nodded and leaned back in his acceleration couch. Most of what Alnduul had shared about today’s “activity” concerned what it did not entail. It posed no physical danger. It did not require any physical effort. It did not violate any laws. It would not take more than an hour. It would not require that Riordan reveal anything about himself that he considered private.

  The one feature that Alnduul did volunteer was that it would involve a very brief, and very limited, pseudo-virtuality scenario: nothing immersive, nothing that would trick Caine’s brain or sense organs into believing he was having a genuine physical experience. Which hadn’t sounded as reassuring as the Dornaani had probably intended it to.

  In the holosphere, a margin of clear ground between the edge of a forest and a razor-back ridge of naked stone was rushing up at them. Either Alnduul was one hell of a hotshot pilot or the semiautonomous guidance system made him look like one: despite the precipitous plummet toward the ground, the last ten seconds of counterboosting were so perfectly executed that there was no discernible bump when they landed.

  As Riordan followed Alnduul out the dilating hatchway, he saw that the piloting artistry had included a last-moment pulse of sideways thrust which deposited the shuttle beneath the overhanging canopy of the forest. Orbital detection was pretty much precluded.

  Riordan followed the unusually taciturn Dornaani across a sward of sponge moss toward the gray, saw-toothed escarpment. Riordan glanced at the sky, then around at the horizon: no sign of habitation or that anyone else had ever set foot on this world. “So is this a black box operation?”

  It took Alnduul a moment to recognize that term. “This is neither an official facility, nor is it clandestine or military in nature. So I do not think that the expression ‘black box’ applies.”

  “So, a private secret lab.”

  Alnduul had reached the craggy stone face. “That might be a closer analog,” he agreed, just before he stepped forward and shifted quickly to the right. And disappeared.

  “Do not be alarmed,” his voice assured. “The surrounding stone is cut to effect what you would call a trompe-l-oeil. What appears to be a dark vein of rock in the shadow of the closest outcropping is in fact a small, sideways passage.”

  Riordan followed the Dornaani’s voice, almost thumped his head into the ceiling.

  “Caution. And apologies, the passage was not designed with humans in mind. Step sideways.”

  Caine did and suddenly, as if he were stepping out of a magical zone of darkness, lights swam up out of nothingness. Alnduul was standing directly in front of him.

  “What—how do you do that?”

  “You may recall that your sensors have difficulty detecting our ships, even when they are only one quarter of a light-second distant.”

  Riordan nodded, saw a natural passage winding away, deeper into the rock. “We dubbed it comboflage, since whatever you’ve got evidently manipulates both infrared and visible light.”

  “Which you, personally, hypothesized as being related to our hulls’ ability to absorb light, even from weaponized lasers.”

  Riordan frowned. “Yes, but I never told you about that.”

  Alnduul ignored Riordan’s caveat. “Both your theories are correct. A grid of endophotic nanoparticles has been embedded in the surfaces behind you. Collectively, they absorb and convert it into infrared emissions.”

  “But that means—” Riordan stopped. There was no way to articulate all of what that really meant, and how much more it implied. “So you can convert energy from different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum back and forth pretty easily. And you put this here so that no light would leak out. But why not just put i
n a door?”

  Alnduul’s eyelids drooped slightly. “Our densitometers are far more sensitive than yours, even at orbital ranges. A door would be detected as a manufactured feature in what is otherwise a natural passage. Please follow me.”

  * * *

  After winding through natural caves, they arrived at a chasm. A stony chin jutting out over the lightless abyss proved to be an open elevator platform that descended swiftly.

  Alnduul’s voice was ghostly in the rushing dark. “Soon, we will be at a depth where orbital densitometers cannot reliably penetrate. Beyond that, we shall be essentially undiscoverable.”

  “And you are showing me all this because…?”

  “Because there is no other way to bring you to the facility. But also, I hope to illustrate that those of us Custodians who are more proactive have always seen parallels between the secrecy of our modus operandi and IRIS’s. At least, IRIS as it existed under Nolan Corcoran, and then, briefly under Richard Downing.”

  “Yes, well, that epoch is well and truly over.”

  “And yet, you may be certain that a new star chamber shall emerge. It always does, among humans.”

  The ledge elevator started to decelerate. “Dornaani don’t have the same problems?”

  “We do, but not with the same intensity or frequency. We are far less driven by rank, status, or class.”

  Riordan cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I see the connection between the two.”

  Alnduul joined the index fingers of either hand. “Unlike your pyramidal paradigm of class distinction, our social structure resembles a web. Leadership does not appeal so greatly nor so widely among us. Conversely, there is less tolerance for activities that are not sanctioned by cultural habit or explicitly approved by the Collective.” The lift drifted to a halt. Alnduul walked forward into a long, smooth corridor that was illuminated, but had no visible lights.