“Greetings,” she says in Alliance Common.
About five different heavy weapons are aimed at us, and while I don’t expect any of those to do much damage, I don’t envy the defense operative who will try to deflect their projectiles before they can reach our armor.
The one closest to us—their leader?—says something gruffly in response, and I only understand his words due to Anihemer’s understanding. He’s asking her if she speaks his language. This is only implied, but I get it loud and clear: he is not going to stoop so low as to speak Alliance Common.
Mezvamar nudges me with her mind, and we also connect—I quickly appraise her that we stepped into some kind of aggravating intra-human conflict. We arrange our minds into a three-node cluster as Anihemer speaks.
“Why are you shooting at us?”
He steps back in startlement.
“The monsters speak________?”
I can’t parse any specific words, let alone proper nouns, just the intent.
“We are not monsters,” Anihemer says. “I am from ________, just like you. I grew up eating pieces-of-cereal-in-a-whitish-fluid for breakfast.”
He steps forward again. Blood suffuses the vessels in his face, and his skin changes color. “I didn’t grow up eating pieces-of-cereal-in-a-whitish-fluid for breakfast with no monster.”
“Life is change,” Anihemer says. This is not going well.
Incongruously, Mezvamar thinks she’d like to try that dish.
“Are you Isolationists?” Anihemer asks. This concept is common enough in the universe that I understand the name with ease.
“Why should I tell a monster? We are no Isolationists. We came all this way with the power of science and progress,” he boasts.
Shooting at us must qualify as progress in their minds.
We still try to assimilate this when some of the other men leer from the back. I still do not understand the words, but I try to grasp the concepts better—they are the names of . . . tentacle monsters? Us? They see us as—? My brain struggles to assimilate the wildly different perspective conveyed to us through Anihemer speaking their language. Everything that is beautiful in us, everything that is elaborate and complex and organic and soft and kind—it is to be eradicated, disinfected, scrubbed clean.
Anihemer asks them, “What does progress mean if—”
She never gets to finish the sentence, for this is when the ground splits open and the giant shape arises, soil clumps streaming down its sides.
The men cheer. “Progress! All hail the Manifestation! The Manifestation of Progress!”
It is unbearable. Terrifying. The shape is entirely inorganic; it is devoid of everything that is good in the universe. It makes no sense to the mind, and the mind must turn away in fear of the unassimilable, the cruel and lifeless. It is a shape demarcated in its entirety with straight lines.
The humans do not turn their gaze away. They beam at the bright yellow ▲, their faces aglow.
“The summoning succeeded!” they murmur. “Our intent, reaching out to the most fundamental of the Ancient Ones! Taking form, taking shape!”
Then the turquoise ■ ascends.
“Technology! The Manifestation of Technology!” The men weep in utter joy and hug each other, pat each other in the back.
Our feet are rooted to the shuddering soil birthing unimaginable monstrosities.
Anihemer is the only one who can withstand the mind-shattering sight. In her thoughts, I can feel an unfamiliar geometry reassert itself—a geometry not built on recursion and self-similarity or on curves and time-courses, but one built on straight lines. Disjunct points. Forming ▲ and ■ and . . . my mind struggles with alien concepts. How have these people ever built a spaceship?
The ■ descends again, followed by the ▲, thumping at the ground as we struggle to maintain our balance. An infernal, grotesque jumping spectacle. I try to avert my eyes, but I am forced to watch as they begin to shoot spikes of light, a malevolent twisting of the Everglowing. One of the nearby buildings—I now understand, made up of ■s for some obscene reason?—shatters from the impact. Bodies in charred envirosuits soar through the air. I watch this because even this is easier than facing the ▲. Progress and Technology begin to decimate their surroundings.
The men chant louder.
The two gigantic shapes cease their jumping and turn toward each other while they keep on shooting—seemingly at random in every possible direction. The gap between them begins to glow. I can feel space itself attenuate. The thinning-out mercilessly draws my attention even as I do not know what it is that I see. Emerald-colored glimmers appear in the gap and fade away. I sense a bottomless, all-permeating hunger emanating from the shapes.
I know that I see rigidity and destruction, the antitheses of life and natural growth, but to my utter horror, I also begin to understand that these shapes have a certain appeal—in their vast simplicity, in their uniformity, in their mind-numbing lack of variation.
They appeal to Anihemer, who grew up with pieces-of-cereal-in-a-whitish-fluid and learned about ▲ and ■ but turned away from them.
They appeal to me—a friend. A sharer of thought processes.
They appeal to—
Mezvamar is the first to unfreeze, by necessity: she dodges an incoming bolt, moving with raw muscular grace, and shouts at the ■ towering above her. “WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE TO YOU?!”
The humans shudder, awakening from their trance, and train their weapons on us in unison. They take aim, ready to fire—
Anihemer pulls at the newly built structures within herself, flings light out toward the humans. Rapid exteriorization of power.
It does little: the forceful push rapidly devolves into a faint breeze. But it clears her mind. It confuses the humans. It gives us a moment of opportunity.
Mezvamar roars and jumps forward. A wave of burning hot power pushes the humans away, and they scatter in the air like pollen whirling inside a ship-cavern.
They do not get up. But the ▲ begins to move toward us. It has no color gradations or anything that would give it a semblance of reality beyond its yellowness. It’s homogenous and entirely unfathomable. It is the manifestation of progress built on annihilation. Progress defined by pushing ▲-shaped spacefaring vessels into the great beyond, ▲s that have no Presence or mind and that move by burning away more inorganic matter instead of merging with the everglowing light.
The ▲ makes a monstrous grinding noise as it approaches, sliding on the ground. This is even harder to bear than the jumping. It grates at every single one of my senses.
“DOES IT HAVE A WEAK POINT,” Mezvamar screams.
Anihemer thinks frantically, and we think with her.
Where do the two geometries intersect?
Can we subsume these shapes in ours?
Can we incorporate—
Recursion. Self-similarity.
Active defense. Defense I have set up—and set up well.
“If this backfires and we end up with a gazillion angry ▲, we are so screwed,” Anihemer yells. “Let alone ■!”
We perform what our mind-cluster has decided.
Mezvamar gives power to Anihemer, enough power to reach the ship, reach out to the assistant navigator.
Mezvamar gives power to me, and I check the armor one more time—all ready to go.
The ship lurches sharply planetside, rushes, singing with the joy of motion strengthening the Presence.
The ship rams the ▲, outer armor layer bursting, coils of tentacles springing out.
Our cluster strains as we try to constrain the coils into an entirely unfamiliar shape.
A ▲ and another ▲ and another ▲ and another ▲. They latch together in a fractal pattern, subsuming each ▲ into a growth of many ▲s. Turning toward the ■. Moving. Subsuming. Self-similar and self-replicating. An integrated function system, building itself into curls and whorls, plantlike—or like smoke rising on the wind.
We were worried the ship’s armor layers w
ould not prove to have sufficient material. But the material of these alien shapes molds readily to the new pattern. The new kind of progress. A superordinate set of principles.
Nature itself.
“Heck yeah,________,” Anihemer mutters. “I studied math for this moment.” She turns to us, grinning with tears. She suspends mind-contact for a moment and enunciates slowly and clearly, so we can pay attention to the phonology. A name. “Heck yeah, Sierpiński.”
And I see that ________, planet of these humans, has always held seeds of a different progress.
We reestablish contact and hold hands as above us curlicues glow against the emptiness of space.
Anihemer cries, and we can sense that she is finally free.
* * *
We wait companionably as the black-clad humans of the Alliance jump in, mostly in groups of three. Mezvamar grins, eager to comment. “See, that’s how it’s done,” she says. “Good and proper.”
A human walks up to us, armor almost covering their entire body—sturdy and modern but not of their own self. Through their visor, we can see their face: it’s round, brown-skinned, firm, but friendly.
“Well met,” they say in Alliance Common. “I’m ________of the Free State of ________, delegated to Alliance Treaty Enforcement.”
Anihemer understands from the choice of grammar that this person is a woman. But I’m frustrated I missed her name. I ask Anihemer to repeat it for me, sound by sound: Anayāun ta-n Oronesun.
Anihemer turns away from me and steps forward. “This is not Alliance space.”
The officer readily agrees. “No, and we make no claim to it. But you have alerted us to a threat endangering Alliance space.”
“Indeed?” All three of us are skeptical, but only Anihemer can speak to the Alliance representative with ease.
“We detected jump point generation from here to Alliance Central, the Emerald Spires.” I have heard of that place before, so this is easy to understand. The Emerald Spires are the locus of Alliance decision making. It makes an eerie sense to me: if one desperately wants to eat, why not start with the richest, most nourishing portion? So many people, so much wealth.
I hiss as I understand the immensity of what we have accomplished. What we stopped.
My gaze lingers on the symbols on the Alliance officer’s helmet, patterns I had taken to be imitating thorns—and my blood runs space-cold as I realize they are made up from interlocking ■. Something inside me has irrevocably changed.
The officer grins—for a moment, so similar to Anihemer—and she gestures at the whorls above. “What do you propose to do with all that material?”
“We can incorporate it into our growth,” Anihemer says. “What do you propose to do with all these people?”
“They are ________-humans and ________ wants to withdraw from the Alliance. It’s a politically delicate situation.” The officer grimaces. “We will take them, but we’ll see what happens.”
Anihemer is not even surprised. She says, “________ wants to withdraw after spending so much effort on joining? I’ve been away far too long.”
She glances up, follows the twists and turns overhead with her gaze. “Or rather, I haven’t been away enough.”
Mezvamar and I step next to her, flanking her. Supporting her with our presence. Her mind leans into the closeness of our minds, and her muscles relax ever so slightly with the relief of it all.
“Well then,” she says. “Let us grow.”
Bogi Takács is a Hungarian Jewish agender trans person currently living in the US as a resident alien. E writes and edits short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Eir work has been published in venues like Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Uncanny, among others. You can find em at http://www.prezzey.net or as @bogiperson on Twitter and Instagram. E also writes about books at http://www.bogireadstheworld.com and has a webserial in the same continuity as this story at http://www.iwunen.net.
The Sixth Vital Sign
Wendi Dunlap
Illustrated by Michael Bukowski
To procreate is the zeitgeist of every primitive culture, thrall to every base whim and instinct. It is a narcissistic impulse on par with psychiatric disorder. With social evolution comes the realization that the point is not reproduction but prolongation of life with as much vitality as possible.
Weh understands this. The desire to prolong life has governed his species for millennia, a race distinguished by their morality and strict principle to do no harm. They’ve sought to maintain this harmony throughout the universe. But times have changed.
In some circumstances, even the evolved find themselves in the accidental predicament of creating life. Of course, with these situations comes a wave of ego, titillating that primordial vanity to replicate oneself, to create a mirror image that is different in one, single aspect: its perfection. But there is also deep regret when one must become a god. Reproduction, after all, tends to fall short of expectation, and nurturing is not necessarily innate. The creator is often disappointed by the offspring’s inadequacies and its own failings as progenitor. And as always, pain follows disappointment.
Or does it cause it?
These are the musings that plague Weh, a scientist on a space laboratory orbiting Vhrool in the twenty-third nebula. Each rotation marks the end of a year, and the deadline for another progress report to a council whose impatience is surpassed by their physical and mental deterioration. The new year is mere hours away and Weh is no closer to a solution than he was a year ago. Instead, he fears that what he does have is something else entirely.
If creation leads to disappointment and disappointment leads to pain, can we then conclude that creation is pain? And is destruction than pleasure? Death a release?
Weh rubs his temples with brown tentacles, suctions gently massaging in a futile attempt to stay the oncoming migraine. These are not rational thoughts. The Shesmu sickness has begun to spread. In some, it starts with the mind, others the body, eventually coursing through both. His team wasn’t tasked with a cure, only to create a sustainable system of organ and nerve regeneration to halt its progression. But time has finally run out.
He sinks into the murky waters of the rehabilitation chamber, opening his wide maw to inhale the nutrient-infused liquid. After several minutes, he rises with a dramatic exhale that shakes the metal, foliage-covered walls of the ship. He lifts his massive bulk across the sleek, moss-covered artificial stone and onto the cool soil covering the floor. He can still feel the cold, unnatural metal underneath. The humidity is so high that a thin mist hovers in the air, but it is not enough. Already, his pores are drying out, his eyes red orbits, his tentacles shriveling and sore. His wings shrink into the base of his back to escape the aridity. He visits the rejuvenation chamber more and more these days. Another sign that despite the distance, the disease has found him here in space. Even the brains of Zaoth could not thwart its advancement.
I don’t want to die here.
He misses the deep oceans and shallow lagoons of home, moisture everywhere, plant-life green and lush and lifting to the moons, the dirt warm and fertile. His pulse would synchronize to the squawks and splashes of the other sea creatures, his breathing steadied to the motion of the water.
There is no nature in space, only artifice with chemically enhanced waters, replicates of totems and statues, a depressing mimicry of home. Here, the black void is pierced occasionally by blinding white suns, and the only creatures are the abominations caged within the bowels of the laboratory.
“We cannot afford failure,” the council admonished.
So for the last year, he’s hidden the truth.
The macabre shrouded in cold emptiness, the cries of the suffering swallowed by the blackness of space.
He shakes his head to clear the negative thoughts. But the guilt is inescapable. Anything with a conscience would feel the same, but Weh is certain Shai no longer has one.
“Bountiful risings!” she greets him as he walks stiffly into the laborator
y, her tentacles wave merrily around her face. She is the picture of physical strength: skin moist and glistening, tentacles taut, eyes bright and focused. But her physical strength is merely a façade. Shesmu has found her, too, and she is almost completely insane.
As the specimens mature, Shai’s arousal is undeniable; she invents fresh tortures to inflict on these creatures in the name of science. Yesterday, she beat the male until his flesh broke and fluid ran from its eyes. She insisted she needed to test how quickly it could heal. “Sedation is out of the question,” she argued. “It may impact the speed of regeneration.” And of course, she insisted on inflicting the beating herself, questioning the efficacy of the neuralgia machines.
He hates her.
“Council update at 1200,” she reminds him unnecessarily. “Have you thought about what you’re going to say?”
“The truth,” he answers.
Shai snorts in derision.
And he hates himself for lying with her last night. But her insanity fuels an enthusiasm that brings his weakening body to new heights of pleasure. They twisted and intertwined for hours before he was lulled into deep subconscious by the unrelenting pulsing of her body against his own. Her soft quivers of pleasure set tone to visions of colorful explosions erupting from the tips of tentacles and the soft sweetness of her core. But when he awoke, she was gone. Done with him, he suspected she had gone to copulate with the specimens again. He caught her at it once, already.
“I’m testing the sensitivity of their nerve responses,” she dismissed his horror and continued with psychotic brazenness.
Or perhaps she had them fight again. “To test durability,” she’d explained. She’d prod them with electrical shocks until they clawed and kicked at one another to avoid the pain they knew would come if they stopped. Titillated by the display, she’d watch while discreetly reaching tentacles deep into her folds to stimulate herself.
Ride the Star Wind: Cthulhu, Space Opera, and the Cosmic Weird Page 42
